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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THEY MET IN HEAVEN 



by/ 
GEORGE Hi HEP WORTH 

AUTHOR OF " HIRAM GOLF'S RELIGION," ETC. 



NEW-YORK 
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST. 

1894 



>N 291894; 



\*: 



Hjys^JL 



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Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

E. P. Dutton & Company. 



/1-3Y 



Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
Astor Place, New York 



WITH A GRATEFUL HEART 

I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE BOOK 

TO THE MEMBERS OF 

THE FIRESIDE CLUB, 

OF WOODBINE. 



PREFACE 



It would be an evidence of either weakness 
or conceit not to express my gratitude to the 
public for the cordial greeting it has extended 
to " Hiram Golf's Religion." I wrote the book 
as a tribute to a dear old man who firmly be- 
lieved that all work is God's work, and that the 
toil of daily life, if done by consecrated hands, 
is never drudgery. " The little things of life 
are all great things," said Hiram to me one 
day ; and I have never forgotten it. He used 
to declare that my frequent conversations with 
him were a help and an encouragement, but 
when I reach the other shore I shall be able to 
prove to him that the balance of indebtedness 
is on my side rather than his. The silent 
ministry of his humble life has drawn many a 
weary and way-worn heart to the Lord. 



VI PREFACE. 

My publishers have asked me for other remi- 
niscences of the " Shoemaker by the grace of 
God," and on looking over my note-books I find 
a rather full account of The Fireside Club and 
its discussions during the winter preceding the 
death of this remarkable man. Hiram was 
loved by every member of the club for his ster- 
ling honesty, his somewhat crude but always 
forcible way of expressing himself, and his 
unshaken faith in a Father who is with His 
children all the time. 

The history of this club is contained in the 
following pages. There may be other Van 
Brunts in the world, souls wandering in the 
direction of the light but not reaching it, and 
if these find their way to the Cross they must 
needs thank Hiram, not me, for their new-found 
happiness. I am simply the chronicler of events, 
but Hiram's is the voice that gives good cheer. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Few Friends i 

II. In Utter Darkness 20 

III. A Corner-stone Laid 39 

IV. A Dream and a Discovery 63 

V. An Unbroken Line 82 

VI. A Shoemaker's Religion 103 

VII. Where is Heaven ? . . 123 

VIII. Was it a Vision ? 151 

IX. The Club Adjourns 1 72 

X. Heaven at Hand 193 

XL Good-Night 203 



THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 



CHAPTER I. 



A FEW FRIENDS. 



It was the somewhat formidable necessity of 
earning a livelihood which forced me to spend 
.the winter of 1889 in the little village of 
Woodbine, whose humble citizens are lulled to 
sleep by the rippling Cheroquee. I had been 
engaged to superintend certain dyeing proc- 
esses, the secret of which is my stock in trade, 
for Phil & Khun, in whose woolen mills several 
hundred men and women find employment ; 
but I sighed as I packed my trunks, and antici- 
pated a very dreary time. 



2 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

The six months of my stay, however, are not 
to be forgotten. The incidents that occurred 
seem now, as I look back upon them, like shut- 
tles flying hither and thither through the warp 
and woof of time, weaving a fabric as rare and 
priceless as a piece of medieval tapestry. 

How strangely things happen in this world ! 
What we look forward to with dread turns out, 
ofttimes, to be the delight of memory. I would 
have given half of my possessions — not worth 
much in solid cash, I must confess — if I could 
avoid this journey. Woodbine seemed the most 
undesirable spot on the globe, and I was in no 
amiable mood when I read the dispatch which 
ordered me to start at once. 

A country village, " remote, unfriended, mel- 
ancholy, slow." Bleak hills, frowning skies, 
and impassable snowdrifts. Why not go to 
Labrador, or Alaska, or Spitzbergen, and have 
done with it? It was exile from the friends of 
many years, from all the pleasures of city life, 
the music of my favorite orchestra, the stimulat- 



A FEW FRIENDS. 3 

ing rumble of a thousand vehicles on the hard 
pavement, the unconscious tingling of nerves 
which the crowd in a great thoroughfare always 
produces. " Anything but Woodbine, with its 
farms, farmers, and icicles!" I inwardly ex- 
claimed. " I shall die of ennui, become a mere 
fossil before spring, and hear of nothing more 
exciting than the latest news of Neighbor Cobb's 
cow, or the grocer's colt." I like the whirl of 
life, enjoy the friction of contact with my kind, 
and therefore looked on the Cheroquee Valley 
as a sepulcher in which I was to be temporarily 
entombed. 

But now, as I look back on those months, I 
find a resurrection rather than a burial. The 
experience I shrank from proved to be the most 
enjoyable and profitable of my life. I was like 
the Western miner who, by some good luck, 
stumbles on a pocket of ore at the very moment 
when he has concluded that there is no ore there. 

Let me introduce the rare and gifted men 
whom it was my happiness to meet during that 



4 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

memorable winter, and then I shall gladly as- 
sume the duties of a phonograph, through which 
you may listen to their golden words. 

There was John Jessig, pastor of one of the 
churches, and an old classmate of mine at Har- 
vard. We lost sight of each other when he 
took a course in theology and I a dive into the 
maelstrom of business. How I loved the fellow 
in those far-away days ! He was a student with 
a conscience. When he entered the ministry, 
it was because he had something to say to the 
people. He examined the creed, the church, 
the Bible, as vigorously as Agassiz used to ex- 
amine a new fish which some whaling captain 
had caught in the northern Atlantic. 

" I know what others think of these things," 
he said to me just before we parted, "but I 
must find out what I think myself. I can't ac- 
cept any one of them on hearsay. If I become 
convinced that creed, church, and Bible are 
necessary to an honorable life and to a proper 
preparation for the future, then I will enter the 



A FEW FRIENDS. 5 

ministry. If I am not convinced, I will apply 
for a clerkship somewhere." 

And there he was in Woodbine, preaching 
to a hundred farmers and fifty mill hands. He 
had examined the foundations and was engaged 
in building on them. I can hardly tell you how 
surprised I was at meeting him ; but my surprise 
was not equal to my delight. I was strolling 
along the single street of the village on the sec- 
ond day after my arrival, rather glum and down- 
hearted. A man came from one of the cottages, 
and, without casting a glance in my direction, 
walked away. There was something in his gait, 
in the swing of his arms, that immediately at- 
tracted my attention. I quickened my pace out 
of pure curiosity, wondering the while where I 
had seen him. My memory served me a bad 
trick ; but then he had changed in the ten 
years since that dance on College Green. His 
shoulders had broadened, he was no longer the 
boy who delivered the valedictory, but a robust 
and full-srrown man. Time had dealt with him 



6 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

generously, but had so far disguised, or rather 
developed, him that instant recognition was im- 
possible. At last, however, the revelation 
came, and when I was within a half-dozen rods 
I impulsively cried, "John!" and the next 
moment we were in each other's arms. After 
that Woodbine seemed more tolerable. 

It was around the ample hearthstone in 
Jessig's little study that many of the incidents 
occurred which I am about to relate. Good 
hickory was the cheapest fuel to be had, for 
there was plenty of it in the woodlands back of 
the village ; and as John's salary allowed no 
luxuries, he smilingly asserted that a cannel- 
coal is to a hickory fire what moonlight is to 
sunlight. The huge logs burned so cheerily 
and threw such a genial glow through the room 
that lamps could easily be dispensed with, and 
the enjoyment of those frosty evenings will never 
be surpassed until we gather in the other Home. 

Then there was a saintly stranger with silver 
hair and deep-blue eyes — eyes like the sheen 



A FEW FRIENDS. 7 

of a sapphire. He was erect of figure, impos- 
ing in his personality, and bore his seventy 
years with gracious serenity. He had an intro- 
spective mien, as though this world had given 
him all it could and he was looking for better 
things in the Beyond. I often said to myself 
as I gazed at his face, " The present is his 
dream ; the future is his reality. He is grow- 
ing a little weary of to-day, and is thinking of 
to-morrow." 

By general consent we addressed him as " the 
Master." He maintained the same calm de- 
meanor at all times, and was unruffled by fickle 
circumstance. It was by no means the calm- 
ness of an indifferent or a sluggish soul, but 
that of one who has passed through the fire and 
been purified. At times I was even filled with 
awe, as though in the presence of a superior 
being. I hardly know why, but he always re- 
minded me of the ocean as I have watched it 
from the shore on a summer afternoon. The 
waves rolled slowly and leisurely up the strand, 



8 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

but how resistless they were, and what a sense 
of authority they gave me ! " Quiet but om- 
nipotent!" I have often said to myself, and 
then a voice from the depths has responded, 
" Quiet because omnipotent!" Yes, there is a 
certain majesty in mental and spiritual quies- 
cence when it results from problems that have 
been settled once for all. 

Shall I ever forget my first ten minutes' talk 
with the Master ? I said, with some show of 
irritation : 

" Dollars and cents are autocratic and re- 
morseless. They have borne themselves in the 
imperative mood toward me, and therefore I 
am here. I am the slave of business." 

" Let me congratulate you," he replied, in 
rich, mellow tones, " on the divine necessity of 
work. The world's business is not only impe- 
rious but imperial. So is God's providence, and 
so are the laws of nature. Commercial activity 
means manliness. It results, as it was evidently 
intended to do, in individual and national pros- 



A FEW FRIENDS. g 

perity : therein it is imperial. Every one is 
forced by the pressure of circumstances to do 
his share of the general work, the penalty of 
neglect being poverty: therein it is imperious." 

His words hit me hard. My work, then, was 
not drudgery, but duty. That was a new idea, 
and my petulant complaint shamed me. I can- 
not say whether at the time my cheeks flushed 
or not, but they do now as I recall the incident. 

" I have a notion," he went on quietly, " that 
business, properly attended to, is an education. 
It is possible to learn from contact with our 
fellows certain profound secrets which text- 
books cannot teach. The whirl of commercial 
transactions, the competitions of trade — though 
sometimes carried to a destructive limit — are 
God's university, from which one graduates 
only when Death hands him his diploma." 

I was like a vessel at sea when the wind sud- 
denly shifts and the sails are all taken aback. 
It staggers for a few minutes, until the crew 
with their merry "Ha, ya, boys!" haul the 



IO THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

yards to leeward, and then rushes once more 
through the laughing waves. The Master made 
me reel, for he was uttering very radical opin- 
ions ; but still there was something alluring in 
his speech, and I said, " This man sees far and 
thinks deeply. He is not like other men, for 
he lives in two worlds, either of his own making 
or God's, I can't quite tell which as yet." 

" If this diploma," he added, in a sort of so- 
liloquy, " certifies that the bearer has been a 
faithful student, has made an honorable record, 
has bequeathed to society at large an example 
which it would be well for the younger genera- 
tion to follow, has recognized his duties as well 
as his privileges, has helped his kind with one 
hand while achieving success with the other, 
he need have no fear when he knocks at the 
Golden Gate, for it was the Lord Himself who 
said, ' By their fruits ye shall know them.' " 

I had been brought up to walk on the level, 
hard, smooth, macadamized highway of the 
dear old Athanasian Creed, and must confess 



A FEW FRIENDS. II 

to being somewhat shocked. His words had a 
heterodox taste, and though I bowed politely, 
I am sure he detected my dissent ; but he con- 
tinued in a strain which rather exasperated my 
conservatism. 

" I have another notion," he said, " that busi- 
ness and religion were intended to complement 
each other. They are like different strands of 
a rope, which, united, hold the weight of the 
world. If religion is divorced from business, 
mankind suffer; if they are like man and wife, 
both of them necessary to a happy home, the 
other life throws its radiance on this life, and 
this life becomes the prophecy of another life. 
To be only a business man is to be only half a 
man. God bestows His blessing just as will- 
ingly on a warehouse as on a church. What 
is preached on Sunday amounts to little unless 
it is lived on Monday. The love of money is 
honorable ; the passion for money is fatal. To 
combine getting with giving is to bring heaven 
and earth together ; to get without giving is to 



12 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

invite Satan to laugh in his sleeve. When the 
poor man and the rich man are brothers, then 
hospitals abound, asylums are built, charity 
prevails, and the world is happy ; when the rich 
man is an aristocrat and the poor man is a syco- 
phant, the world chokes and gasps." 

"The Church," I ventured to suggest, "would 
hardly approve of such strong statements." 

"And more's the pity," he replied; "but I 
think you are in error. At any rate, Christ ap- 
proved of them, and that ought to satisfy us. 
If the people were taught that the prime object 
of religion is to make a noble character, and 
that a noble character is prima facie evidence 
of saving grace, consciously or unconsciously 
possessed, the multitude would shake hands 
with the pulpit. The clergy would then have 
the fulcrum which Archimedes sought, and 
could pry the earth out of its dullness and de- 
spair. As it is, the multitude and the pulpit 
are hardly within co-operative distance of each 
other. They are mutually courteous and form- 



A FEW FRIENDS. 



13 



ally polite, but neither has the other's entire 
confidence. As a consequence, the multitude 
go their own way perversely, and the pulpit 
pleads in vain for a hearing." 

This is what occurred at my first interview 
with the Master. He gave my old-fashioned 
ideas a terrible shaking up, and I felt for a time 
as though some one had exploded a pound of 
dynamite in my brain. He had, however, the 
bearing of a most gracious sovereign. He did 
not overwhelm me by his self-assertion, as the 
poor Switzer is buried under an avalanche, but 
seemed to be trying all the while to persuade 
me to become a genuine man, with personal 
convictions instead of prejudices, with opinions 
which I could put to the test and prove true. 

Next in this little group of royal souls was 
Hiram Golf, saint and shoemaker. He was in 
some respects the most original, and in other 
respects the most lovable, creature I have ever 
met. Hiram mended a torn pair of brogans as 
reverently as he prayed, and seemed to regard 



14 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

the one service as quite as important as the 
other. His crutch was his scepter, and his lap- 
stone a kind of lay pulpit. He was one of the 
elect few whose right hands do not know what 
good their left hands are doing. There were 
two witnesses, and only two, to his kindly deeds 
of charity — the dear Lord and the poor man 
who received the basket of provisions. A 
shoemaker and a high-priest! 

They laid his body in the churchyard in 
1892, and John Jessig was so hurt by the blow 
that he had to ask for a month's leave of ab- 
sence. When the doctor told Hiram that his 
end was near, he faintly whispered, " That's 
good news. No crutches up yonder! It'll be 
kind o' strange at first, I reckon, but I'll soon 
feel to home, for I know quite a lot of people 
on the other side." 

How shall I describe the last member of our 
company, who occupies a conspicuous position 
in this little story ? Peter van Brunt had been 
visited by an affliction so terrible that my heart 



A FEW FRIENDS. 15 

stood still when we heard of it, and I noticed 
that even the Master's eyes were dim. From 
a cloudless sky the bolt came that ruined his 
home and left a scar on soul and body. He 
had fortune, social position, genius, a wife and 
a child. A shady nook in paradise had appar- 
ently been assigned to him. But in one short 
week two catastrophes occurred, and when I 
first saw him he reminded me of a huge tree 
that had stood in the path of a blizzard. He 
was riven, torn, disfigured, and hopeless to the 
point of despair. In his residence some acci- 
dent had happened to the drainage, and be- 
tween Monday and Saturday the boy and the 
mother were called to heaven. His desolation 
of heart was beyond expression. The sudden 
shock had benumbed him, but when the mental 
paralysis passed away and he realized the situa- 
tion, he was for a time on the edge of insanity.- 
A dismantled ship on the lee rocks, a magnifi- 
cent edifice reduced to ashes by devouring 
flames — I could think of nothing else. He had 



1 6 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

too much heart to be a Stoic, and too much 
manliness to drown his grief in dissipation ; so 
he faced the facts, shivered with resistless emo- 
tion, and did the best he could. 

To make matters still worse, his convulsing 
agony had roused the dormant energy of a dis- 
ease which he had probably inherited. If he 
had been at peace with himself and with God, 
the malady might have remained forever in 
hiding; but during the rebellion that raged, 
these malign elements of his physical nature 
came to the surface and there intrenched them- 
selves. 

I cannot tell how close the connection may 
be between mind and body, but it has some- 
times seemed to me that mental repose and 
bodily health are more nearly related than is 
generally supposed. Van Brunt was in a vol- 
canic state of mind. I could not look into his 
haggard face without thinking of the French 
Revolution of '93, when the people lost their 
balance, repudiated both duty and justice in 



A FEW FRIENDS. 17 

their passionate outburst, and then built a guil- 
lotine on the Place de la Concorde. If poor 
France had steadfastly held to her ancient faith, 
had sought the Throne in prayer instead of 
pelting it with execrations, the frantic folly of 
Robespierre would have been impossible, and 
the brutal agonies caused by the so-called 
" Committee of Safety " would never have been 
written in blood on the page of history. When 
France lost her mind, the body-politic became 
diseased, and the pursuits of peace gave way 
to the mania for murder. 

In like manner, if Van Brunt had had a cross 
to cling to as well as a cross to bear, I doubt if 
the physician would have shaken his head and 
sent his patient to the pine forests of Wood- 
bine, knowing that the little village was on the 
way to a cemetery. 

Faith came to him at last, however, and how 
it came and what results it produced are re- 
corded in these pages. It came too late, 
though, to save his body. The edifice was 



I 8 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

tottering to its ruin, and could no longer afford 
a safe shelter for the spirit. But trie short 
afternoon of his life was bright and hopeful, 
and when the shadow fell he went forth to 
meet his dear ones with a smile on his lips. 
He bade us good-night " like one who wraps 
the drapery of his couch about him and lies 
down to pleasant dreams." It was not the 
sleep that knows no waking, but that quiet 
slumber from which one is roused by angel 
whispers to find that he is clothed upon with 
immortality and surrounded hy those not lost 
but gone before. 

Just before the farewell, he intrusted to my 
care the journal of incidents that occurred dur- 
ing his stay in Woodbine, and gave me permis- 
sion to do what I thought best with it. It is 
the faithful mirror of the man's soul. It reflects 
the doubts which lashed him as with a whip of 
knotted cords, and also his gradual emancipa- 
tion from them. I have read many of its pages 
with trembling lips, for there are traces of tears 



A FEW FRIENDS. 19 

on them still, and other pages with a sense of 
God's pitying and sympathetic presence. When 
I closed the little volume, it was with the feeling 
that the age of miracles has not yet slipped into 
the past. " I will be with you alway " includes 
the latter half of this nineteenth century. 



CHAPTER II. 

IN UTTER DARKNESS. 

LET me now make you acquainted with 
Peter van Brunt, and with the pitiful circum- 
stances against which he bravely struggled, by 
some quotations from his journal. There is 
many a soul, perhaps, breasting the same storm, 
and vainly looking for the light which after 
months of darkness filled his firmament with 
perfect day. If few have suffered as he did, 
few have rejoiced as he did. There is a me- 
tempsychosis by which one is literally born 
again, and it is possible that in this diary my 
friend has blazed a path which others may 
follow. 

" October 6th. Well, here I am in Wood- 
bine. It seems to me like a railway junction 
where I shall change cars for my family lot in 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 21 

Forest Hills. Doctor Franklin didn't say so, 
but he made so much of an effort not to say so 
that I am sure he thought it. He told me a 
change of scene was necessary to get my mind 
away from — no matter what, and suggested 
this wretched little forlornity because there is a 
lot of pine trees growing somewhere. I am not 
deceived, however. The doctor has done his 
best, but the result can't be avoided, and is not 
far off. I don't much care; the sooner it is 
over, the sooner I shall be at rest. It is about 
as easy to die in Woodbine as anywhere else. 

" October ioth. The old pain, but aggra- 
vated by a sharp wind from the northwest. It 
blew a gale, and the wind whistled through the 
woods when I went for a walk, as though in 
derision. All nature, the sky, the clouds, the 
long sweep of intervale, seemed to say, ' We've 
got you. You may struggle, but there's no 
escape.' How I hate nature, merciless, relent- 
less, cruel! It is one everlasting must — a fist 
of iron, with no heart behind it. I have had 



22 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

a miserable day, and shall be glad to go to 
sleep. 

" October 1 2th. Gooby's birthday ! When 
he was a mite of a fellow, just learning the use 
of his tongue, he used to pat his chest with his 
dimpled hand and cry, ' Gooby ! ' which I in- 
terpreted to mean ' Good boy ! ' and by that 
name he was always called. Ah, how could 
you leave me? Where are you, dear boy? 
Anywhere? Nowhere? Who can tell? I 
suppose every parent is proud of his children, 
but Gooby was exceptional in some respects. 
A ten-year-old head on a five-year-old child. 
That was the trouble. He was sitting on my 
knee one. day, looking intently into the distance, 
when he turned suddenly and said, ' Papa, 
where is heaven, anyway?' The question 
struck me with the impact of a bullet, and I 
staggered, and kept silent. What could I an- 
swer? I knew nothing about heaven, and cared 
less. The present absorbed my attention, and 
all I asked was that it might run on indefinitely. 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 23 

He wouldn't be put off, though, and, looking 
me full in the face, said, ' Papa, how old are 
you ? ' ' Why do you ask ? ' I replied. '■ No 
matter why, papa, just tell me.' '■ Well, Gooby, 
I am thirty-eight.' 'Then,' he cried out, 'you 
are a great big man, and yet you don't know 
where heaven is. Aren't you ashamed?' I 
still kept silent, hoping the boy would change 
the subject ; but he broke out with this odd as- 
sertion : ' Papa, you don't know as much as I 
do. I know where heaven is, because mamma 
told me all about it' 

" Poor Gooby ! he really thought he knew all 
about it, and it made him happy. Does he 
know all about it now, or isn't there any heaven 
to know about? 'To sleep: perchance to dream : 
ay, there's the rub.' Ah, if I could be sure 
of even dreaming, certain I am that in my 
dreams I should see those dear ones again. 
But to sleep and not to dream ! To sleep on 
and on, with never a ' good-morning ' for any 
one! 



24 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" These thoughts are too exciting. ■ My pulse 
is high, while my despair deepens. If I could 
only, only forget! To remember, and to be 
helpless and hopeless! I think I know just 
how the great rebel whom Milton depicts felt 
when he said, in uncontrollable disgust, ' Myself 
am hell.' 

"October 15th. After what I wrote last 
night, my conversation with Rev. John Jessig 
to-day seems rather odd. We met on the 
street, and I walked home with him. The 
hour I spent in his library, looking over his 
books, was rather pleasant, and yet it left a 
pang in my soul. I can't see things as he does ; 
would that I could! He has a splendid edi- 
tion of Horace, and we read some of the Odes 
together. Jessig is a scholar, and ought not to 
be buried among a lot of mill hands. Just at 
the end of our interview — does he know why 
I am here, or can he see my mental as well 
as my physical condition? — he took down the 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 25 

Apology of Socrates and translated this pas- 
sage, not knowing that he was driving a lance- 
point into my quivering flesh : 

" ' Moreover, we may conclude that there is 
great hope that death is a blessing. To die is 
one of two things : either the dead may be 
annihilated and have no sensation of anything 
whatever, or, as is said, there is a certain change 
and passage of the soul from one place to an- 
other. If ij; is a privation of all sensation, as it 
were a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, 
death would be a wonderful gain. 

" ' But if, on the other hand, it is a removal 
from hence to another place, what greater bless- 
ing can there be than this, my judges? At 
what price would you not estimate a confer- 
ence with Orpheus and Musaeus, Hesiod and 
Homer? I indeed should be willing to die 
often, if this be true.' 

" I don't know that I was ever in greater 
agony in my life, but of course I concealed it 



26 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

from Jessig. How vividly it brought back 
those awful days in which my hopes and my 
life were blasted — wife and child both in the 
churchyard ! The cold perspiration broke out 
all over me, and for a moment I was faint. 

"The theory of reunion I can't accept, and 
sleep means eternal separation. That is my 
quandary. Is God just? I say, a thousand 
times, no ! It is easier for me to dispense with 
God altogether than to believe in one who 
could think it either wise or fair to rob me in 
this ruthless fashion. I simply refuse to be dis- 
ciplined in that way. A human autocrat who 
should decree such suffering would drive his 
subjects to rebellion and endanger his throne. 
Omnipotence, unfortunately for us, can do as it 
pleases, but it must not ask for acquiescence in 
its caprices. 

" October 16th. I have just read yesterday's 
entry. True, I am in desperate rebellion against 
what preachers call Providence ; but how can I 
help it? I hear only one word from morning 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 2"] 

to night — 'Gone!' I see nothing but those 
two pale faces, and am beside myself. If I 
could die, or if I could believe ! But I can do 
neither. I am like one consumed with thirst 
sitting on the bank of the river at which others 
are drinking their fill, and unable to swallow a 
drop. For John Jessig's faith, or for what he 
professes to believe, I would give a hundred 
fortunes if I had them. But to stare at heaven 
and not see it! To look longingly for the dear 
ones whom fate has hidden from your sight! 
My weeks are a prolonged nightmare. O re- 
ligion, if I could once get hold of you ! O God, 
if I could only say ' Our Father ' ! But with 
two graves in evidence, it is impossible. Woe 
is me ! Good-night, old world, good-night. 

"October 18th. I spent three hours this 
morning in the pines. The mercury was well 
up toward sixty, and with my fall overcoat on 
I was very comfortable. The wind blew from 
the south'ard and came across the blithe Cher- 
oquee. They call it a river — village pride, I 



28 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

suppose — but it is only a fair- sized stream. It 
is a rippling little affair, though, and runs along 
as merrily as possible. Somehow I thought of 
it as a line of poetry, and as it tumbled rhyth- 
mically over the rocks in its bed I fell to scan- 
ning it. I could really make a regular penta- 
meter out of it. Why, I don't know, but these 
lines of Lowell came to mind as I sat there 
listening : 

' And often, from that other world, on this 

Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, 
To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss, 
And clothe the Right with luster more divine.' 

" Perhaps for a full hour I kept repeating 
these words, and they seemed set to the same 
tune as the music of the stream. It struck me 
as an odd coincidence, for it was a mere acci- 
dent that brought this particular poem to my 
memory. Did the Cheroquee have some mes- 
sage for me? Was it intended by some one 
who dwells somewhere that I should go to that 
spot to-day, should hear the river singing, and 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 29 

should then sing with it those sweet words, 
which, however, and alas ! mean nothing to me ? 

" I fell into a reverie, a brown study, un- 
leashed my thoughts and let them wander un- 
hampered by my doubts. I almost think I was 
half happy for a while. There was a soothing 
influence in the air, and the unbroken stillness 
was, as it were, sympathetic. Did Lowell be- 
lieve what he wrote? Is it possible — I don't 
ask if it is true, but simply is it possible — that 
even under the most favorable circumstances 
' some gleams ' from the other world ' may 
shine, to shed on struggling hearts ' a bliss, a 
hope, or, in fact, anything? If it were indeed 
possible, then it might be also probable ; and if 
it is probable that such an experience may be 
had by any one, why not by me? 

" O Clara, do you know what I am think- 
ing about? Do you realize how I miss you, 
and how I miss the boy? Was it as hard for 
you to go as for me to lose you ? Can you see 
me, or hear me? Where are you, darling? 



3<D THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

Give me an answer to that question, and I shall 
be content. It doesn't seem much to ask, and 
yet how blankly the stars shine on me when I 
call, and how dumb the shadows are as they 
creep over the landscape! Not a word. A 
great wide world, but not one word for me. I 
don't think I can bear this racking, torturing 
loneliness much longer. 

" October 25th. I had a talk to-day with 
Hiram Golf, a shoemaker. Jessig took me to 
his little cottage, and then left us, as he said, 
'to have it out.' Golf is either a fool or a 
philosopher, and I am rather inclined to accept 
the theory of the former. A queer fellow, but 
decidedly original. His grammar is simply 
' prodigious,' as Dominie Sampson used to say, 
but he has a way of throwing ideas as though 
they were cobble-stones. 

" ' If I don't keep peggin',' he remarked, as 
I sat down on a stool, ' I shan't have no dinner ; 
so you'll excuse me if I pound away and listen 
at the same time.' 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 31 

" He didn't say this like one who asks per- 
mission to do something, but as though that 
was his method of procedure and if you didn't 
like it it would make no sort of difference. I 
was half inclined to take my hat and leave, but 
as I had no place to go to, and was awfully 
tired of myself, concluded to swallow his pecul- 
iarities and stay. 

" The conversation ran on in the usual fashion 
for a while, first on politics, and then on relig- 
ion, when Golf hammered a peg home, as he 
blurted out, ' No God, no nothin' ; that's my 
way of lookin' at it.' This was perhaps in 
answer to what I had said. I don't remember. 
' No man can't budge an inch till he's solidly 
fixed on that one fact,' he remarked again, as 
he examined an old shoe for repairs. 

" ' And if one finds it impossible to become 
fixed, what then ? ' I asked, half indignantly, for 
his chatter exasperated me. It was intensely 
personal, though of course he didn't know that. 

" ' Well,' he replied, ' in that case he'll be like 



32 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

John Babbitt, a city chap, who thought he'd 
take a cross-cut through the forest yonder, and 
found out what it means to get lost. We had 
to borrow a couple of dogs and go and hunt 
him up. We found him, but he was pretty 
nigh dead with hunger, and dreadfully scared. 
Never go through the woods without a guide, 
and don't go through life without God. Now, 
those are tough facts, but they're facts.' 

" After I left Golf I went down to the bridge 
that spans the river, and stood there, looking at 
the sky, at the lazy clouds poised above me 
like great white birds, and at the farms stretch- 
ing far away. Those words kept ringing in my 
ears as the church-bells used to when there was 
a cry of ' Fire ! ' They had a harsh sound, and 
were maddeningly vibrant. ' No God, no noth- 
inV A horse and wagon passed me, making 
the old bridge with its loose boards creak pain- 
fully, and the rumbling seemed to take the form 
of language and repeat the phrase, ' No God, 
no nothinV I looked down into the waters 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 33 

flowing past, and the western sun threw my 
shadow, lengthened to the proportions of a 
giant, on the stream. Was it a wild imagina- 
tion that make the shadow apparently whisper, 
f No God, no nothin' ' ? 

" I didn't admit the proposition when Golf 
made it ; on the contrary, I argued stoutly 
that modern science was gradually dispensing 
with the idea of a God. But now that I am 
alone, I confess that the shoemaker was right. 
Who knows it better than I do ? What are 
fields and flowers and hills and clouds to me? 
Would I had never been born, for my life is a 
quicksand, into which I sink deeper with every 
struggle to get out. When they were with me, 
I might have believed ; but now, with a crushed 
heart, never. I think I am even defiant. 

" Yes, Golf was right, and I'll sleep on it. 
■ No God, no nothin'.' 

" October 28th. Rained hard all day. About 
three in the afternoon the sun tried to come 
out, but the clouds were too much for it. I 



34 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

watched the unequal contest for half an hour 
with considerable interest, because that is pre- 
cisely what is happening inside of me. Rainy 
weather in my soul, soughing winds, and all 
sorts of teasing, fretting things. Sometimes I 
think my sun is making a desperate effort to 
come out, too, but I rather guess it will be thick 
and drizzly until the end. With everything 
that I valued gone, why should I be cheer- 
ful, or even resigned? Under present circum- 
stances it would be criminal to enjoy anything. 
I can't forget, I don't want to forget ; and yet, 
until I forget, I must suffer just as I do now. 

" In spite of the storm, I called on Jessig. 
He was getting his sermon ready for Sunday, 
but kindly allowed me to interrupt him. He is 
a man with a moral spinal column. When I 
asked him what he proposed to preach about, 
he said, ' The significance and uses of sorrow.' 
' I suppose,' I retorted, with some bitterness, 
' you'll talk about ten minutes and then give it 
up.' ' On the contrary,' he replied, cheerfully, 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 35 

' I find that I can't get it all into one sermon, 
and am seriously thinking of making a series. 
You may yourself have had some experience,' 
he added — I thought how Brutus stabbed his 
friend Caesar — 'and perhaps you will give me 
a warm, encouraging word to say.' Think of 
applying to me for words of encouragement! 
Could I tell any one how to bear grief when I 
don't know how to bear my own ? Can a ves- 
sel that is going to pieces on the rocks tell a 
neighboring vessel how to sail the seas safely ? 
I don't know what Jessig thought of my con- 
duct, but I am sure I turned red in the face and 
stammered in my reply. 

" Jessig went to his library, not apparently 
noticing my embarrassment, and took down a 
volume, from which he read two or three sen- 
tences. ( You know,' he said, ' I believe in two 
worlds united, not in two worlds separated. 
Heaven and earth are really one, and the de- 
parted and the living are within speaking dis- 
tance.' 



36 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

"What a pleasant voice he has! And his 
clear black eyes have something about them 
that is magnetic and sympathetic. I like to 
hear him talk, even when I don't believe a 
word he says, as, for example, in the present 
instance. The story he read was like a bit of 
poetry, but of course it is a fabrication. There 
is an island, it seems, somewhere — nobody 
knows where, though — whose inhabitants live 
by fishing. So far, so good. I know what fish 
are, and I know what fishermen are. The 
shore of this far-away island that nobody has 
ever located is rocky and dangerous of ap- 
proach. It happens, therefore, that when the 
fog settles down the fishermen don't dare to 
land, but lay off and on as near to their homes 
as may be, and wait for clear weather. They 
can't see their huts, on account of the mist. 
Their wives and sweethearts at such times 
gather on the rocks and sing a verse of some 
familiar son? then wait and listen. Soon the 
fishermen take up the second verse and send it 



IN UTTER DARKNESS. 37 

drifting in toward the land. And so these two 
unseen companies, invisible but nevertheless 
close to each other, are in constant communi- 
cation. 

" Jessig told me seriously that he believes 
heaven and earth are not far apart, and that 
the lost ones are ministering angels. 

" I shook my head. ' It is an agreeable sen- 
timent,' I said, ( but it doesn't appeal to reason.' 

" f To whose reason doesn't it appeal?' he 
said, turning sharply on me. 

" ' To mine,' I answered, determined to hold 
my own. 

" Then he resumed his quiet manner, and 
remarked, ' Mr. Van Brunt, you will frankly 
admit, I think, that there is a very great differ- 
ence between the assertion " It doesn't appeal 
to reason" and the other assertion " It doesn't 
appeal to my reason." It is possible that if it 
does not appeal to your individual reason, the 
difficulty may not be in the statement, but in 
some personal peculiarity of yours. 



38 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" ' I am free to say,' he added, ■ that the in- 
cident exquisitely illustrates the truth as I con- 
ceive it, and I shall use it in my sermon next 
Sunday.' 

" ' I can't accept it,' I said, rather hoarsely, 
as I took my hat and bade him good-day. 

" ' But if it should happen, after all, to be 
true,' were his parting words, l it would put a 
new face on affairs, wouldn't it? ' 

" So I left him ; but somehow those words 
stick to my memory. Yes, it would indeed put 
a new face on affairs, but — Pshaw ! Let me 
hold on to my common sense, at any rate." 



CHAPTER III. 

A CORNER-STONE LAID. 

We five, the Master, John Jessig, Hiram 
Golf, Van Brunt, and I, agreed to meet once a 
week, or as often as convenient, in order to 
compare notes and chat on such subjects as 
might present themselves. 

No topic was tabooed, not even politics, and 
on more tlian one occasion controversial state- 
ments flew thick and fast, and wit and sarcasm 
and repartee filled the air with good-natured 
electric sparks. 

But this chronicle will contain no record of 
secular subjects. My purpose is to follow the 
footprints of Van Brunt as he emerged from the 
shadow and arrived at last at the foot of the 
Cross. It was a long and painful journey, but 
he pushed bravely on, and reached the vantage- 
39 



40 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

ground from which the heavens are clearly 
visible. 

We called it The Fireside Club. There was 
something hospitable and homelike in the 
name, and when the Master suggested it we 
thought it an inspiration. 

" A fireside," said Hiram, as he lifted a log 
in place with the iron tongs and sent a tornado 
of sparks up the chimney, " a fireside kind of 
invites you to talk free. I couldn't talk no 
other way if I tried, so it suits me wonderful." 

" And a bright blaze," added Jessig, who 
moved his chair a little farther back from the 
fire, " is suggestive of cheerfulness, which is one 
of the most important elements of religion." 

" It ought to be," broke in Hiram, "but un- 
fort'nitely it gen'rally isn't. When I size up 
most of the religion in the world, it reminds 
me of a box of lemons ; and lemon religion is a 
direct insult to the Lord. Folks is positively 
afraid of the love of God, and want as little to 
do with it as possible. They've got a notion 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 41 

— though where they picked it up I don't 
know — but they've got a notion that it's well 
enough for God to love them, but if they return 
His love they'll have a pretty stupid time in 
this life, and do nothin' but play on a harp in 
the next one. I don't want to hurt nobody's 
feelin's, and the parson will correct me if I'm 
wrong; but in my jedgment the religion that 
don't appeal to a man's common sense and 
make him say, ' There ain't no two ways about 
it ; I've got to have it, no matter what it costs,' 
isn't worth preachin' about." 

Van Brunt sat gazing at the fire, but said 
nothing. I think he felt as I imagine a discord 
in music feels. There was an air of despond- 
ency about him that was very pathetic, and half 
defiant. He was pale, but now and again, as 
at Hiram's blunt remarks, his face suddenly 
flushed. Perhaps you know what I mean when 
I say we got the impression from his bearing 
that he " wanted to, but couldn't." There was a 
hair in the watch, and the hands did not move. 



42 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

We respected his moody reticence, and dur- 
ing the first hour talked as though he were not 
present. But before the evening was over he 
joined the discussion, and it was evident from 
his remarks that he was both traveled and 
cultured. 

The Master struck the keynote by saying, 
" Since God desires every man to be saved, we 
have a right to expect that the plan of salvation 
will be simple enough for the humblest creature 
to understand. In God's dealings with the 
human race there is no mystery. He has not 
revealed Himself to a few scholars only, but to 
the whole world. If a man has any mind at 
all, he has only to read the New Testament to 
find out what God requires." 

"That is the same as sayin'," remarked 
Hiram, " that if the Lord wants me to get to 
heaven, and is goin' to advise me which road 
to take, what hills I've got to climb, and what 
valleys to trudge through, He won't tell me to 
go to Parson Jessig or Deacon Milbank, 'cos 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 43 

they've been to college and I haven't, but'll 
talk to me in plain shoemaker language." 

" The sole object of religion, as Christ taught 
it," resumed the Master, " is to make us worthy 
to be saved, or, in other words, to produce a 
noble life. If it fails in that, it fails in every- 
thing." 

"You object to a creed, then?" asked Jes- 
sig. 

" Not at all," was the prompt answer. " I 
would have a creed, but I would keep it in its 
place. Creeds are not necessary to salvation, 
but Christ is. The one is made by man, and 
must be changed as research discovers new 
facts ; the other was sent by God, and is the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. What 
the scholars of the time say may be true or 
not ; what Christ says is always true. I have 
known men to linger so long in finding out 
whether this or that theory of God's will was 
correct, that they had no time to practice the 
ordinary virtues." 



44 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

Hiram's eyes were blazing. He handled his 
crutch nervously, moved in his chair restlessly, 
and then broke out with : 

"Thank God for every one of them words! 
When you get down to the core of things, I 
reckon you'll come to the conclusion that doin' 
is a good deal better'n believin', ef you can't 
do both ; and the best way is to begin with the 
doin' and let the believin' catch up with you 
if it can. The gospel of gettin' to heaven by 
means of believin' was writ for those sly old 
sinners who want to shirk duty, and expect to 
slip through the Golden Gate by carryin' their 
creed as an entrance ticket. But the Lord ain't 
easy to cheat. If you ' do ' the law, it ain't 
hard to ' believe ' it. It's in the natur' of 
things, and you can't help it. But if you only 
'believe' the law, and don't do it, you're goin' 
to have a hard time explainin' matters when 
you get up yonder." 

"This is all so new to me," said Van Brunt, 
in rather a startled tone, " that you must excuse 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 



45 



me if I express some surprise. Do you really 
mean to tell me that the essence of the whole 
thing is contained in the desire to be useful to 
your kind, in being — " 

" Pure in heart? " suggested Jessig. 

" Bearing yourself like a prince of the house- 
hold of God?" added the Master. 

" But faith — " began Van Brunt. 

" Faith in God as your Father? " asked Jes- 
sig. 

" Faith in Christ as your Guide and 
Teacher?" asked the Master. 

" Faith in your fellow-man when he needs 
just the help which you can give? " I asked. 

" No, no, not quite that," answered Van 
Brunt, who must have felt that he was being 
pelted with questions. " But faith in the long 
list of doctrines which we were told in our 
boyhood are necessary for acceptance with 
God." 

"Just supposin' a case," broke in Hiram. 
" When I come to stand before the Jedgment 



46 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

Bar, would it be common sense for me to say, 
' Lord, I'm dependin' largely on what I believed 
for admittance, and I hope You won't look too 
closely into my doin's ' ? There ain't no use 
tryin' to deceive Him, so I've got to put the 
thing straight. Suppose I say, ' I've accepted 
the whole creed just as the parsons down there 
told me to. It made a pretty full meal, and I 
had some trouble with dyspepsy. Parts of it 
was tasty and wholesome, but other parts had 
to be cut dreadful fine before I could get 'em 
down. Don't be hard on me, for though I'm 
a little weak in the matter of livin', and didn't 
allers trade on the square, there ain't a trace of 
heresy about me anywhere.' If I did that, I 
reckon the Lord would have a frown on His 
face, and answer me, ' Hiram, I thought I gave 
you a little common sense, but I must 'a' for- 
got to, or else you've dropped it on the road. 
Perhaps you'd better go back and pick it up, 
for you're too good a man to throw away ; 
and yet there ain't no place 'round here for a 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 47 

soul that could make such stupid remarks as 
you've been doinV " 

" Very well, then," began Van Brunt, " but 
what — ' ' 

"Hold on a minnit," Hiram cried, "and I'll 
tell the other side. I wouldn't risk it to go to 
heaven with nothin' but my belief to vouch for 
me, or with my belief and an ordinary sort of 
life ; but I wouldn't feel no fear at all if I could 
say to the Lord, ' Dear Lord, You didn't give 
me any special amount of brains, so You 
mustn't expect me to know much about theol- 
ogy ; but You did give me a pretty good sort 
of heart, and it has prompted me to do some 
little work for Your children. I'd like to inter- 
duce in evidence the case of Jim Burchard, who 
lived on the cross-road just north of the Cher- 
oquee. When I found him he was a reg'lar 
attendant on a rumshop, and he abused his 
fam'ly. I tugged away at him — that is, Parson 
Jessig and me — and after a while he come 
'round all right, and died a sober and prayin' 



48 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

citizen. There he is over yonder, among the 
host of the redeemed, singin' "Hallelujah!" 
with all his might.' Well, now, I reckon the 
Lord wouldn't send me back to hunt 'round for 
my common sense if I could tell Him that, and 
prove it." 

" Am I to believe what Hiram says? " asked 
Van Brunt, who was almost excited. " Is that 
genuine religion? Is that all there is in it?" 

" Yes," answered the Master, " that is genu- 
ine religion, because it is following the example 
set by the Saviour. But it is not all there is in 
it, for it is entirely legitimate to speculate, if you 
are properly equipped for that task. It is in- 
tensely interesting to read the conclusions which 
the great theologians have reached, and their 
investigations are of advantage to the Church, 
but these matters are not essential to your ac- 
ceptance with God. The man who simply fol- 
lows the Sermon on the Mount will 'after a 
while find that he is on the threshold of 
heaven." 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 49 

" I think," Van Brunt went on, " I think I 
am being positively denuded of all my inher- 
ited notions on this subject. This is new to 
me, and I should like to ask where I am to 
begin." 

" If one begins with a personal and paternal 
God," answered the Master, "he begins well; 
if he has doubts on that point, he ends before 
he begins." 

"Well, then," said Van Brunt, "I have at 
least made a good start. But the next step? " 

" The next step is equally important," re- 
sponded the Master. " You must not only be- 
lieve in this personal God with your intellect, 
but with your heart ; that is to say, you must 
enter into close relations with Him, friendly and 
confidential relations. You must be conscious 
that He is near at hand, and interested in all 
the details of your life." 

" Ah," said Van Brunt, with a sigh, " that is 
a very different and a much more difficult mat- 
ter. Alluring, indeed, but is it possible?" 



50 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" A God," continued the Master, " who con- 
trols the universe by laws made eons ago, and 
who has no present interest in what He has 
made, is a vague and rather dreadful Being, 
whom we may address in a formal and perfunc- 
tory way ; but a God who is so intimately re- 
lated to His world that not a sparrow falls to 
the ground without His notice, and who asks 
us to work with Him, that we and He may ac- 
complish the divine purpose — that is a con- 
ception which makes us heroic." 

" You are wadin' in rather deep water," 
broke in Hiram, fixing his eyes on the logs in 
the fireplace ; " but what a wonderful and gra- 
cious world this would be if everybody was that 
way of thinkin' ! God and me ! God in me ! 
God sayin' to me, ' Hiram, I'm omnipotent, 
you know, and I'm anxious to give you all you 
can hold. Keep growin', Hiram, and then you 
can hold more, and shall have more.' ' 

" To my mind," remarked Van Brunt, " there 
is something presumptuous in all this. I am 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 5 1 

not sure that I could reverence a God who 
would enter into such relations with a poor, 
miserable creature like myself. I was brought 
up on monarchical ideas of theology. I was 
taught in my boyhood that God is jealous, as 
we understand the word, and half anxious to 
punish me for something. As that conception 
made no appeal to me, I grew indifferent, and 
have remained so. What you say has a very 
strange sound. Were our fathers wrong? Are 
they no longer to be heeded? I confess that 
the possibility of spiritual nearness which you 
hold out is alluring, but I fear you are going 
too far, and have no sufficient warrant for so 
radical a position." 

Jessig took a New Testament from the table, 
and, without saying a word, laid it on the Mas- 
ter's lap. 

"Thank you," said the gray-haired saint. 
Then, taking the book and opening it, he con- 
tinued : 

" There is but one Teacher who is the final 



52 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

appeal in a case like this. Forget, if you can, 
all that you have been taught, and listen to His 
words. They are radiant and uplifting, deep 
as the sea, and high as heaven, and yet so plain 
that no one need misunderstand them." 

He turned to the seventeenth chapter of 
John, and added : 

" This is the language of Christ, uttered in 
the supremest moment of His earthly career : 

"'That they all may be one; as Thou, 
Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also 
may be one in Us.' " 

Hiram moved restlessly, and his eyes 
gleamed. His lips trembled with excitement, 
but there was a spell on the little company, 
and none of us dared to speak. The Master 
was opening the door of a palace and assuring 
us of a cordial welcome. He was showing us 
that the Bible has a side at which we seldom 
look. It is not simply the record of a revelation 
made centuries ago, and half congealed by 
time, but a new, fresh, and glorious revealment 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 53 

of hidden possibilities in ourselves. We almost 
held our breath as he went on : 

" These words either mean what they seem 
to mean, or they mean nothing. They contain 
no figure of speech ; they present a fact. 
There can be no cavil as to the translation, for 
the original is not difficult to read. Being- 
false, our edifice falls into ruins, and we are 
left to nurse a mere guess. Being true, it re- 
quires but to act on them and straightway the 
heavens are opened, and human life is trans- 
figured. 

" What a marvelous possibility is held out to 
us ! God, Christ, ourselves, all one. That is 
the ideal for the realization of which the Sav- 
iour prayed. What dignity the thought adds 
to human nature ! For the first time it be- 
comes plain to us that ' God created man in His 
own image.' Is that, too, a figure of speech? 
Is the Bible nothing more than a mass of Ori- 
ental hyperbole? If we were originally made 
in the image of God, and if, after disfiguring 



54 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

that image beyond recognition by ages of sin- 
fulness, the Saviour could pray that we and He 
and God might come to be one at last, what a 
vista of great deeds, glorious aspirations, and 
high ambitions breaks upon our startled vision ! 
It is hard to grasp such royalty of thought, 
such grandeur of destiny ; but when grasped, 
how small and petty seem the cares and anxie- 
ties of this present time. The mind that re- 
volves about such a central sun grows more 
brilliant as it speeds along its orbit, and scat- 
ters light in all the dark regions of space." 

Hiram could contain himself no longer. 

" I can't say," he cried, " that I am quite up 
to catchin' the whole meanin' of your talk, but 
I'm like my boy John. When he was a young- 
ster, he got sight of a brass band that was 
playin' in the village. He was so far off he 
couldn't hear it all, but he got hold of two or 
three notes, and was sartin that it was f Hail 
Columbia,' and began to shout 'Hurrah!' 
I've heard enough of this to know that it must 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 55 

be the kind of doctrine I've hammered out for 
myself while peggin' at my bench, and I want 
to shout ' Glory!' " 

It was impossible to repress a smile, but 
Hiram was in serious and deadly earnest. 
Even Van Brunt unbent for a moment, and his 
lips twitched. But the shoemaker had not fin- 
ished. He went on : 

" I reckon it's about like my Marthy on 
bakin' day. There's the dough on the board, 
but 'tain't no good while it's only dough. 
There is somethin' wantin' to make it into 
bread, and that is, good yeast. Marthy takes 
the yeast, sprinkles it over the dough, and then 
kneads it in. And she keeps sprinklin' and 
kneadin' until yeast and dough are no more 
two, but one. Now, it may not be the yeast 
that makes the dough into bread, but it's sartin 
that no dough will make bread fit to eat unless 
there's risin' in it. 

" It's somehow that way with a man. He 
isn't good for much until God's Spirit is all 



56 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

through him, kneaded into him. After that, 
he'll make up into wholesome bread." 

It was a very homely but an entirely unique 
illustration, and quite characteristic of the shoe- 
maker. 

" Admitting that the man of no faith is the 
man of no happiness," said Van Brunt, " how 
is one to get rid of these uninvited doubts? 
What mental purgative shall he take to cleanse 
his blood of such impurities? A thoughtful 
man hesitates to convert religion into a game 
of blindman's-buff. I must be convinced, and 
that implies an intellectual process, a premise 
which is undeniable, and a conclusion that is 
logically inevitable." 

" I quite appreciate the objections you urge," 
replied the Master, in something like a whisper. 
" I have suffered enough from such harassments 
to know how wearying they are. But may I 
suggest that while the intellect very naturally and 
easily reaches the conclusion that there must 
be such a being as God, still when it insists on 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 



57 



knowing who and what He is, and how He 
does what is done, it becomes hopelessly be- 
fogged. You can't take the measure of God 
by triangulation. The surveyor's chain is also 
useless for the purpose. He can't be reduced 
to an algebraic proposition and demonstrated. 
If there be no other methods of discovery, we 
may as well cease our efforts at once. An ant 
might as well try to comprehend a giant as 
anything finite to comprehend the Infinite. 
God slips away into hiding when we seek for 
His specific gravity. You can't weigh a mount- 
ain with the apothecary's scales, in which 
scruples and grains are used. Science is rather 
arrogant in its claims ; it says to God, ' Come 
here, and let us see what You are like ; do 
something, and let us see how You do it ; we 
will say a prayer by way of experiment, and 
You will be kind enough to answer it in such 
way that we can see how the machinery oper- 
ates.' When such efforts are followed by fail- 
ure, when the Almighty disdains to exhibit 



58 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

Himself, the man of science looks at the audi- 
ence and says, ' There is no God ; it's all a 
mistake.' 

" The ant says to the giant, ' Come down 
into my ant-hill and let me hear you talk, and 
see how you do your work.' If the giant re- 
plies, ' I can't make myself as small as you are, 
any more than you can make yourself as large 
as I am,' the scientific ant turns to his fellows 
and says, ' There is no giant ; you are all mis- 
taken.' " 

" I confess," retorted Van Brunt, with flash- 
ing eyes and flushed cheeks, " to being some- 
what confused. I am in a labyrinth, and feel 
around in the darkness for a clew. It has 
seemed to me that I ought not to believe what 
I can't understand, and ought not to trust my- 
self to do anything that I can't see clearly." 

" And yet," broke in Hiram, turning squarely 
about and facing Van Brunt, " you do that 
every day of your life." 

" I think not," answered Van Brunt. 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 59 

" Well, let me tell you what happened to me 
once, and then you'll get hold of my meanin'. 
Two year ago last August I was goin' across 
Lake Erie in a steamboat. We hadn't been 
out more'n two hours afore a thick mist settled 
down on us. I couldn't see the for'ard part of 
the vessel. Thinks I, ' This is a bad mess, and 
I don't see why we shan't run ashore some- 
where.' I thought of Marthy, and the boy 
out in Montana, and felt pretty blue. But the 
steamer run along at full speed as though 'twas 
broad daylight. 'That's rather reckless,' says 
I to myself, and I went on the upper deck to 
have a talk with the capt'n, whom I knew. He 
married one of my old schoolmates, and we'd 
sorter kep' up an acquaintance. 

" ' Ain't you goin' at full speed? ' said I. 

" ' Sartin, Hiram,' he answered. 'This boat 
is bound to get there on time.' 

" ' 'Tain't dangerous nor nothin' ? ' I asked. 

"'We don't care for no fog,' he replied, 
' long's the compass holds out. We're steerin' 



60 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

by that, and ain't likely to make no mis- 
takes.' 

" Then he showed me that little needle, that 
seemed to be floatin' on water, and wrigglin' 
from side to side slowly, as though it knew its 
business. He said, ' Hiram, that allers p'ints 
one way if you let it alone and don't put no 
iron near it.' 

" Of course I wasn't ignorant of what a com- 
pass is and what it's for ; but the question that 
Mr. Van Brunt has just put was lyin' in my 
mind at that moment. For that matter, I've 
wrastled with doubts myself, and they give me 
a pretty hot time of it, too, I can tell you. 
That's what put me to inquirin'. So when 
Capt'n Bebee said the compass allers p'inted 
one way, I asked : 

" ' What makes it, capt'n? ' 

" ' I don't know,' says he. 

" ' Don't nobody know ? ' says I. 

" ' I guess not,' says he. 'Never heard of 
anybody that did.' 



A CORNER-STONE LAID. 6 1 

" ' Not even the great scholars of the world? ' 
says I. 

" ' Never knew of one that could tell the why 
or the wherefore,' says he. 

" f And you trust your life to somethin' you 
don't know nothin' about? ' says I. 

" ' Every time,' says he. 

" ' How do you dare, Capt'n Bebee ? ' says I, 
thinkin' to draw him out. 

" ' Becos,' says he, ' the needle has been tried 
a good many hundred year now, and it contin- 
ooally p'ints straight to the nor'ard. All the 
money that's invested in all the ships that 
floats, and all the money put into val'able car- 
goes, depends on that bit of steel's tellin' the 
truth, and up to now it hain't told no lie. You 
can depend on it, sure, and yet nobody knows 
why it does just as it does.' " 

Van Brunt sank back in his chair, and was 
silent. I think he was somewhat mortified 
that his query should have been answered 
by the shoemaker rather than by another of 



62 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

the company, but he was too well bred to 
show it. 

As we shook hands with one another at the 
close of the meeting, we all felt, I think, that 
The Fireside Club gave promise of great help- 
fulness. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 

THE next extract from Van Brunt's diary has 
a peculiar interest, because he had discovered 
the secret of his attitude toward religion. I 
can't quite say, as I read it, that the darkest 
hour is giving way to dawn, but the gloomy 
shadows in the east are beginning to lighten 
and to show the possibility of sunrise. It is 
still very thick weather with him, and yet it is 
plain that if he persists in groping after the 
light, his efforts will some time be successful. 

He is at any rate in a calmer state of mind, 
and the desperation of other days is slowly 
giving way to something better. When we 
first knew him he seemed like a poor ship- 
wrecked sailor who is hopelessly battling with 
63 



64 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

the waves, and wondering if it is not better to 
cease his struggles and go down and have done 
with it. But at the time when he wrote the 
pages from which I shall quote, he was like that 
same sailor, who has found a broken spar and 
determined to make one last effort to reach the 
land. 

Poor fellow ! Many of us have been in a like 
predicament, and know how to pity him. There 
are other souls in this wide world wrestling with 
cruel doubts, and half conscious that if some 
one would only tear the clouds away, they 
could see the face of a kindly Providence. 
They are where Van Brunt was on the 5 th of 
November, when his outlook was dismal indeed ; 
and mayhap they will take the road which led 
him to the hilltop of the following March, when 
he said with Simon, " Lord, now lettest Thou 
Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have 
seen Thy salvation." 

" November 5th. There have been two 
meetings of The Fireside Club, and I was pres- 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 65 

ent at both of them. I felt like an alien and 
a stranger, for the language of faith is an un- 
known tongue to me as yet, and I am half in- 
clined to make some excuse when the time for 
the next meeting arrives. Jessig and Hiram 
talk as though only a thin partition separates 
this life from the next, and they are on such 
familiar terms with God that my old-fashioned 
Puritan orthodoxy — that is, what little there is 
left of it — is shocked. They say ' Our Father' 
as though He were really a father, and not the 
august Being who is to punish a sinful world. 

"Are they in earnest? Do they deceive 
themselves? Are they hypocrites? Excuse 
the last word, but somehow it would drop from 
my pencil. Jessig said the other day that God 
pities the man who bears a great burden. 
Pities! Does He pity me? Oh, no! The cate- 
chism taught me that I am a worm of the dust, 
doomed to the pit for a crime which I didn't 
commit, but the guilt of which I inherited from 
all the generations back to Adam. If that is 



66 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

so, what nonsense to tell me that He pities me 
as I struggle with these awful griefs! Why 
should He pity me? I don't believe it. 

" November 8th. Went with Jessig to see the 
family of a mill hand. The man has been im- 
provident, probably ; at any rate, he drank too 
much bad liquor. Still, he was sick, and the 
doctor quietly informed us that the end was not 
far off. I don't much like that sort of business, 
but I couldn't leave Jessig to go alone. My 
city friends would have enjoyed it if they could 
have seen me carrying a basket of potatoes on 
one arm and about ten pounds of flour on the 
other. But what was a fellow to do? You 
can't get a coach-and-six to make such calls 
with, and there isn't an express in the village. 
I puffed under the load in the most ludicrous 
way ; but when Mrs. Boggs saw the provisions 
— well, I was afraid, for a few moments, that 
she would throw her arms about my neck and 
kiss me. The poor creature burst into a flood 
of tears, and muttered something about gener- 



A BREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 6 J 

osity and gratitude, and a lot of other stuff, but 
I don't recall what it was. 

"Those children — there are four — demol- 
ished some apples I took them as an extra ; and 
as for the huge cake of gingerbread — you've 
seen Hermann slip things out of sight by 
sleight-of-hand, and the gingerbread disap- 
peared in the same mysterious way. I'm not 
much of a philanthropist, but the Boggses shan't 
suffer for want of something to eat while I am 
in Woodbine. The second boy, Jim, was about 
the age of Gooby, and in one or two of his little 
ways reminded me of him. 

" Ah me! The old feeling comes surging 
back again. Why, why, why was it so? My 
only boy! And snatched out of my very 
arms! I must close, or I shan't sleep for bit- 
terness. 

"November ioth. I had to-day a very strange 
experience, and I'm going to put it down in 
detail. Perhaps it means — but no, I am not 
to be influenced by sentiment. The Master 



68 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

says that we ought to be governed in all things 
by common sense, and I propose to exercise 
mine. 

" I was sitting in my parlor, looking out of 
the window. A terrific storm was drenching 
the valleys, and the hills were obscured by 
mists, like great white veils hanging from the 
sky. It rained at times as though another flood 
were upon us, and of course I couldn't stir out- 
of-doors. My pain somehow increased, and 
altogether I had a wretched time of it. The 
inexorable is near at hand, I suppose, and this 
physical discomfort is simply a warning to be 
ready. If death would only bring me to my 
dear ones, how I would welcome it! Life as 
life seems worthless. The mere act of living is 
not pleasurable. It is loving that makes living 
desirable. 

" I wasn't in my usual mood, but was think- 
ing of the Master, and Jessig, and the shoe- 
maker, Golf. Three happier men I never knew. 
What makes them happy? Jessig is just 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 69 

spending himself for these poor people. He 
had a call to a city church, with a large salary, 
and refused it. What is he made of? The 
Master has a very slender income, so I am told 
— barely enough to pay his debts and cover his 
funeral expenses. If he were to die he could 
square himself with the world, and no more. 
As for Hiram, he pegs at shoes ten hours a day, 
and is the most cheery and contented man in 
the village. I said to him last week, ' Hiram, 
you are getting old,' and he replied, ' Yes, and 
I'm all broken up with rheumatis ; but what of 
it? 'Tisn't long before I shall be young. 
When I get rid of this sixty-eight-year body, 
the Lord will make me a present of a new one, 
and I'm kinder lookin' for'ard to it.' 

" While I sat looking at the falling rain, I 
seemed to step out of myself, and to see things 
as they see them — that is to say, I occupied, 
for the time being, their standpoint. W~as it a 
beautiful dream? How marvelously happy I 
was! Such a peacefulness pervaded me as I 



JO 7 'HEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

never dreamed of. The sun on a summer sea 
is the only thing I could think of. I was like 
one who is being led by the great Shepherd of 
His sheep ; like one whose soul is filled with 
calm, serene faith, on which no cloud ever 
throws its shadow. In a word, God was in 
very reality my God — not visible, because the 
glory between Him and me would have blinded 
my eyes, had I looked ; but within reach of my 
hand, and within reach of my cry. I was sur- 
rounded by the murmuring of many voices, like 
muffled music heard at a distance ; and as I lis- 
tened, in rapt delight, I was almost certain that 
I could detect those of my dear Clara and my 
little Gooby. How soft and balmy the air was ! 
And everything was filled with a radiance which 
seemed so natural that I ceased to be surprised 
at it. 

<f ' This,' my heart cried in ecstasy, ' this is 
the " house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens"! This is the "place" of which the 
dear Lord spoke, and w r hich He said He was 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. Ji 

going to prepare for those who love Him.' 
The rain was apparently gone, or I was uncon- 
scious of it. The mellow sunlight poured over 
hill and valley, until the entire landscape pre- 
sented a most entrancing picture. It stretched 
far, far away, while above it arched the sapphire 
sky, as gently as a mother bends oyer her sleep- 
ing child. 

" Strangely enough, my bereavement, my 
infinite loss, the memory of my stricken life and 
my broken home, were present with me. That 
dread affliction was still there. But oh, how 
different! It was not a dull, leaden load of 
hopeless misery, which crushed me to the earth, 
but by some transfiguring influence it made me 
yearn for the other world where my dear ones 
rest. Angels — were they the l unseen beings 
who walk the earth both when we wake and 
when we sleep,' as Milton sings? — gathered 
about me in sympathy, helped to bear my sor- 
row, whispered to me to be of good cheer, 
pointed to the glorious heavens, and cried, 



72 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

1 Whom He loveth He chasteneth. Come to 
the Saviour, dear brother, and bring your heavy 
cross into His presence.' I gazed, I yearned, 
I lifted my hands, and some one among the 
angels took them in his. 

"All at once it came to my mind that this 
sense of nearness to heaven, this filial trust in 
a Father's love, is what the Master means when 
he talks so calmly of suffering, what John Jes- 
sig referred to in his sermon last Sunday when 
he told us that no harm can come to one who 
loves the Lord, and what Golf, the shoemaker, 
enjoys while he hammers at his lapstone and 
sings the while. 

" ' Is it possible that one can feel all the time 
as I feel now ? ' I cried. ' Is this an hallucina- 
tion caused by nervous exhaustion, or is it what 
the real Christian may have both summer and 
winter?' I thought my heart would break by 
excess of happiness. ' If my Clara is there,' I 
said, ' if my boy is there, I will bear the sepa- 
ration as best I can, in the hope that some 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 73 

time I will join them. Thy will, God, be 
done.' 

" Then all at once, like the breaking of a 
magic spell, it was gone, and there I sat look- 
ing out of the window at the pouring rain, my 
heart once more leaden, and my hopes all dead. 
But I thought and thought of what I had seen, 
wondered what had happened to produce such 
an effect, sighed, moaned, and — pardon the 
confession — even wept. It was more than I 
could bear, and I went to my bed, bidding the 
rainy, cold, and cheerless world good-night. 

"November 11th. I have just read my 
entry of yesterday, and don't know how to 
account for what happened. If some one had 
hypnotized me ! But who could have done 
that? Besides, I was alone; and then, again, 
I am not at all what is called a sensitive, and 
not subject to that kind of influence. 

" How I would like to tell the whole story to 
the Master — yes, or to young Jessig, who is one 
of the noblest fellows I ever met. Perhaps they 



74 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

have heard of a like occurrence, for of course I 
am not the only one who has had this singular 
experience. By what law of psychology was 
I thrown into that abnormal state of mind? 
Alas, that it is abnormal! If it were only a 
natural state of mind, or one which I might 
attain by struggle or sacrifice, or at any cost, I 
would begin the task at once. No, I dare not 
tell any one. They would either laugh at me 
or else conclude that it indicated some stage of 
my malady. 

"I sat two hours to-day in my room, with 
the sun pouring through the window, thinking 
it all over ; and the more I thought of it, the 
less able I was to solve the puzzle. If I could 
be sure that I was asleep, then I might place it 
in the list of dreams, and that would end it. 
But, so far as I know — and I can see no reason 
why I should be deceived — I was awake, quiet, 
or rather quiescent, but just as truly awake as 
I am at this moment. It is a queer world! 

"November 15th. I had a long talk with 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 75 

the Master to-day, and one assertion which he 
made struck me with such benumbing force 
that it knocked all remembrance of what else 
he said out of my mind. Literally, I can recall 
not another word or expression, though we 
must have chatted for a full hour. 

" It is very odd, but perhaps he gave me the 
key to my mental attitude without knowing it. 
He builded better than he knew. Or did he 
know what he was doing, and was his assertion 
a probe, a surgeon's probe, with which he 
hunted for the fatal bullet that is lodged some- 
where in my soul ? He said, ' It is possible for 
pious parents to do a great injury to their chil- 
dren. A man may mean to do what is for the 
best, and really do what is for the worst. If 
the terrors of the Lord are brought vividly be- 
fore the young imagination, the boy may get so 
terrible an idea of religion that he never recov- 
ers from it. Children should be led gently to 
right thinking, for harsh measures twist the 
mind out of its proper shape.' 



J 6 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" Great heavens ! What a revelation those 
words were to me ! Was the Master aware 
that he was criticising my own father, and bring- 
ing against him the grave charge of ruining his 
son by the very means he used to save him? 
It never occurred to me before, but can it be 
that my present unbelief is a spiritual reaction 
from the severe training of my boyhood days? 
Can it be that, after all, my infidelity is not 
based on logic, on scientific research, as I have 
always thought, but is the effect of early teach- 
ing on a delicate and nervous nature? W^hy 
didn't I think of this long ago? 

"Oh, my pride of intellect! I imagined I had 
solved the great puzzle and discovered that 
Providence is only another name for natural law, 
that God is a persistent myth, that heaven is a 
pleasant fable. No one was ever more strongly 
intrenched than I, and though I have envied 
Clara her simple faith, and wouldn't have dis- 
abused her mind for a thousand worlds, since 
she was so happy in her belief, I have been 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. J J 

convinced clear through that the promises of 
Christianity were counterfeit notes which passed 
among the ignorant for good money. Now I 
am taught by experience that there may be — 
that is about as far as I dare trust myself — 
there may be ' more things in heaven and earth, 
Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philoso- 
phy.' 

" What if I have been wrong all these years! 
What if the Master is right, after all ! What if 
the chain of logic I have forged has a broken 
or imperfect link, and there is a heaven ! My 
God! My God! It makes my blood tingle. 
But not too fast, Peter Van Brunt. Tread very 
carefully, my dear fellow, and don't allow your- 
self to follow any ignis fatnus, even if it is pe- 
culiarly enticing. 

" I have been an idiot, have I ? I thought I 
was using my brains, when I was merely driven 
by my prejudices. Is that it? Oh no, it can't 
be! I had better, even at this stage of the 
game, with death not far away, face the awful 



78 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

truth, than nurse a lie, however delightful it 
may be. 

" Still, the Master was right in his general 
statement. I had a frightfully religious boy- 
hood, and it makes me shudder, even now, to 
think of it. My father was the best man that 
ever lived. I think of him with reverent ad- 
miration, and cherish his memory with many 
tears. He was an old-fashioned orthodox 
deacon, in the days when orthodoxy meant 
something. His father was also a deacon, and 
his grandfather the same. There were no dilut- 
ing compromises in the orthodoxy of any of 
them ; it was pure Calvinism. Father lived 
right up to his belief, was descended in a direct 
line from the Puritans, and kept his inherited 
faith intact. 

" He brought me up with a birch-rod and a 
catechism. Nowadays, boys learn so many 
verses of Scripture and get a prize. If I didn't 
learn my Scripture lesson I got a thrashing. 
My earliest ideas of the Bible are closely asso- 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 79 

ciated with a certain rawhide, which I shall 
probably never forget. I dreaded the rawhide, 
and I hated the Bible. The dear man wanted 
to be able to say at the Judgment that if I 
wasn't fit for heaven he couldn't be blamed for 
it, because he had never spared the rod when 
there was a chance to use it. 

" On Sunday I was up at five in the morning, 
and worked doing farm chores until breakfast- 
time. Then I went to the ten-o'clock meeting, 
and sat in a straight-backed pew until my neck 
got a crick in it. After the morning service 
came an intermission of an hour, then Sunday- 
school, then the afternoon sermon, and in the 
evening a tedious and doleful prayer-meeting. 

" The minister hadn't a shred or tatter of 
good-nature in him — none, at least, that was 
ever visible to us boys. He was solemn and 
severe, with cavernous eyes, and a harsh, grat- 
ing voice. He preached mostly on the terrors 
of the Lord, and pictured the pit in such vivid 
phrases that I have many a time pulled the bed- 



80 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

clothes up over my head at night and cried 
myself to sleep. He told us that the chances 
were all against us, that it is an awful thing to 
fall into the hands of an angry God, and, to my 
excited imagination, he seemed to be glad of it. 
I looked upon him as the vicegerent of the 
Almighty, never dreamed of doubting any as- 
sertion he was pleased to make, and thought of 
God as a great big orthodox minister shaking 
His thunderbolts over the human race. 

" One Sunday I was on a visit to my uncle, 
who was not a deacon, and was rather liberal. 
He cheerily told me in the afternoon to put on 
my overalls and go to the pasture for the cows. 
Overalls on Sunday ! It looked like sacrilege. 
I was frightened. In my father's house my 
week-day clothes were laid aside on Saturday 
night, and on Sunday I had a different suit, and 
did all necessary work in it. While driving the 
cows to the barn it came across me — I was 
not more than nine years old — that if God saw 
me with those overalls on He would be terribly 



A DREAM AND A DISCOVERY. 8 1 

mad, and probably send me to hell at once. I 
hurried with all my might, and had no peace 
until I reached the barn and slipped those over- 
alls off. Even then, I slunk around with a 
cowardly fear that I should get my punishment 
before morning. 

" Of course, when I grew to man's estate 1 
turned my back squarely on church, minister, 
and religion. According to the Master, that 
course lay in the line of natural revenge for 
what I considered an injury done. I have 
never thought of it in that way, and it is barely 
possible that the severity of my early training 
had something to do with my later indifference. 

" But can it be true that this is the root of 
my present difficulty ? I must talk with Jessig 
about the matter. 

" Well, I can only say this much, that if I 
could believe in the Master's God rather than 
in the God my old pastor used to tell us of, I 
should become almost light-hearted. At thirty- 
nine, however, one doesn't easily change." 



CHAPTER V. 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 



It was John Jessig's turn to introduce the 
next topic for discussion. He was a hard and 
conscientious student, and had accumulated a 
library that represented the best thought of 
the past and the latest research of science and 
scholarship. "These," he said to me one day, 
pointing to his books, " keep me stimulated. 
They are my closest companions, and I am 
never lonely. After a day's work in the parish 
it is very restful to read a paragraph here and 
there from authors who are shaping the opinions 
of the world." 

" But," I replied, " aren't you throwing your- 
self away among a people who certainly can't 
follow you ? You ought to be in some great 
82 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 83 

metropolitan pulpit, where your words would 
have weight." 

" It is not quite modest in me to say so," he 
answered, with a quiet smile, " but I used to 
think that myself. I recently received a call to 
an important church" — he couldn't entirely 
repress his sense of pride while making the 
declaration — " but after a long talk with Hiram 
Golf one day, I concluded to remain here. He 
told me what I ought to have known before, 
that if a man has no other ambition than to do 
God's work and to be of service to his fellows, 
there is as much to be done here as in the great 
pulpit of a great city." 

"Yes, I know all that," I retorted, "but 
these poor folk could get on very well under a 
preacher with five talents instead of ten. You 
have a duty to yourself." 

" No, I have only my duty to the Lord," he 
answered, quickly. " Besides, you are mistaken 
in supposing that poor people can't reason as 
well as rich people. I have found that the 



84 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

most rugged thinkers belong to the class of 
wage-earners. They think crudely sometimes, 
but they have a desperate amount of solid 
judgment, and are not easily deceived by super- 
ficial or false reasoning." 

" I am not prepared for that statement," I 
remarked, my tones full of doubt. 

" Still, it is the fact. I am firmly convinced 
of it. My people can tell the difference be- 
tween a good and a bad sermon as surely as 
any metropolitan congregation. These men 
have been and still are in the struggle for exist- 
ence. It is a hard fight for them from the time 
they enter the mill to the day when they are 
carried to the churchyard. Theories of religion 
don't count for much with them, are neither 
edifying nor interesting ; but a careful recital of 
the main facts of Providence, an explanation of 
the way in which their rough path may be 
smoothed, or of the probable reason why God 
saw fit to put them where they are and give 
them their heavy tasks, and what spiritual ben- 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 85 

efits can be derived from them — these topics 
will arouse their attention and enlist their sym- 
pathy. 

" They have frequently discussed such mat- 
ters with me when I have met them on the 
street, and I assure you that if you can hold 
your own with a hard-fisted and hard-headed 
workingman who has been in the fight for 
twenty years, it is because you are a man of 
mettle. The amount of real thinking which is 
being done by the common people of America 
is far beyond what we credit them with." 

" And do you prepare your sermons," I said, 
" with great — " 

" Yes," he broke in, " with the greatest care. 
I preach my very best, and my best is none 
too good for them. 

"For example," he continued, " I gave a 
whole course of lectures last winter on the his- 
toric development of religion. My purpose was 
to show that among the most barbaric races 
belief in God, crude, of course, and a knowledge 



86 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

of right and wrong, not by our standard, but 
by a standard of their own, prevailed in those 
almost prehistoric days when men first used 
flint hatchets, and before copper and iron were 
made into tools. Look on this shelf, and see 
the books I consulted for that purpose. Here 
is Lang's ' Queensland,' and Moffat's ' South 
Africa,' and Ellis's ' Madagascar,' and Mouat's 
' Andaman Islanders,' and Lubbock's ' Origin 
of Civilization,' and Baker's ' Races of the Nile 
Basin,' and some score more, in French, Ger- 
man, and English." 

" And these mill men and women were inter- 
ested?" I asked, in astonishment. 

" More than that," he replied. "They came 
at last in such numbers that I had to request 
them to bring stools and chairs with them. 
They filled the aisles, and within a month we 
had a genuine rational revival." 

" Marvelous ! " I exclaimed. 

"Not at all," he answered. " I was simply 
proving to them that religion is not a graft on 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 87 

the tree, but is rooted in human nature ; that 
men have always had some kind of religion, 
and always will have, because they can't pos- 
sibly get on without it. And the man who 
works for a living is as eager to know about 
such things as the man of leisure ; more so, 
perhaps. I never enjoyed myself so much in 
my life as I did at that time, and I never 
worked harder to get down to bottom prin- 
ciples." 

" Why not take that subject for discussion at 
The Fireside Club?" I suggested. 

" That is my intention," was the reply. 

And he did. 

He had at least a dozen books piled on his 
study table, and during the evening verified 
his most startling statements by extracts from 
nearly all of them. 

" My proposition," he began, " is that in the 
remotest times of which history furnishes us a 
record men were quite as religious as they are 
now. There never has been an hour since the 



88 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

dawn of creation when some conception of a 
controlling Power was not prevalent among all 
races." 

I think Van Brunt inwardly contested this 
assertion, for he opened his eyes wide, and re- 
marked : 

" Is that the general testimony of travelers 
among savage tribes? " 

"No," was the reply. "Some of them, as 
Don Felix de Azora for example, stoutly main- 
tained that many of the native South Africans 
have no religious notions whatever." 

" Are you not hasty, then, in your conclu- 
sion? " was the quick query. 

" I notice, however," continued Jessig, " that 
in the course of his observations he remarked 
that the Payaguas bury a certain amount of 
clothing and a bow and arrow with their dead, 
which can only be explained on the ground of 
belief that after death they went somewhere 
where these things would be useful. 

" A careful study of the subject will, I think, 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 89 

convince any candid thinker that cultured and 
civilized man has simply developed what was 
intuitive on the part of the uncultured and bar- 
baric races. 

" They lived in huts, and we in palaces. 
They had crude notions, but we have a formu- 
lated and well-reasoned belief. That is the 
chief difference between them and ourselves. 
If I may not say that there has never been an 
age nor a race where God, under some symbol 
or other, has not been acknowledged, I can 
assert without fear of denial that, so far as our 
research extends, no such age and no such race 
have been found. Atheism is not indigenous to 
the soil. It is simply a voracious parasite, which 
has lived on the general faith of the world. 

" We don't believe much more than the race 
has always believed, but we know why we be- 
lieve, and our remote ancestors did not." 

" Do you mean, then," interrupted the Mas- 
ter, " that primitive man accepted the fact that 
he was dual, with a soul as well as a body? " 



90 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

"The belief in immortality," said Jessig, "is 
coeval with the race. No matter how savage 
a given tribe may be, or how murderous their 
vocation, its funeral rites indicate unshaken faith 
that death has not destroyed their comrade. 
In other words, the wildest tribe in Central 
Africa accepted the truth which Tennyson sang 
in the lines, 

" ' Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside ; 
And I shall know him when we meet.' " 

"What, then, has progress accomplished? " 
asked Van Brunt, who evidently dissented, but 
did not care to measure swords with the min- 
ister. 

" Progress has only given us a sharper defi- 
nition of facts," was the reply, " but has never 
successfully denied them. It has furnished us 
with details, and corroborated by logic and re- 
search what in earlier times was a vague out- 
reaching of the universal heart. Religion in 
those days was a ship in a fog, scarcely discern- 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 91 

ible ; religion nowadays is the same ship when 
the sun has burnt up the fog, and we see it in 
its entirety." 

" Or perhaps," suggested the Master, who 
was always happy in his illustrations, " the con- 
ception of other days was that of credulous 
childhood, mingled with many beliefs to be 
outgrown, while to-day we have the same root- 
principle fitted to man's estate." 

Jessig was restlessly looking over two or 
three large volumes. 

" Let me give you some instances," he said. 
" When a native Australian wished for initia- 
tion as a doctor, he went into a trance of two 
or even three days' duration. The people be- 
lieved that during that time he was on a visit 
to the world of spirits. The Khond priest — 
the Khonds are ethnologically very interest- 
ing, because they are counted among ' the hill 
tribes' of India — the Khond priest was wont 
to remain from a week to ten days in a semi- 
comatose state, and it was thought that his soul 



92 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

was in the divine presence. When he awoke 
and reassumed his holy office, his words were 
listened to with something like awe. 

" We retain in certain expressions, constantly 
used, the persistent remnants of this belief, for 
we say of a man that he is ( beside himself,' 
that he is 'in an ecstasy.' These words are 
simply the disappearing shadow of an early 
faith. 

" But," Jessig continued, " this mere ac- 
knowledgment of a shadow, or phantom, or 
soul, which is quite different from the body, 
and may exist independently of it, does not 
represent the full extent of savage belief. It is 
said of the Indians of Brazil that they thought 
a man at death entered the other world just as 
he left this — a degree of realism that is painful 
to contemplate. For example, if he was killed 
in battle he carried all his wounds with him. 
Is not this a crude copy of Solomon's state- 
ment, ' Where the tree falleth, there it shall 
be ' ? We are all alike, in all climes and ages, 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 



93 



with such amount of differentiation as superior 
culture may produce, our culture changing the 
form of faith, but not obliterating it. 

<( The different stages in the evolution of this 
faith are very suggestive. We first meet with 
the notion that there is a body and a phantom, 
or the body and ■ the man that looks out of the 
eye.' Then we come to something a little 
more complex, as the custom among the Iro- 
quois Indians, who, when digging a grave, left 
a hole in the ground, that the soul, not feeling 
quite at home in its new surroundings, might 
visit the body once in a while. And once more 
I call your attention to a curious persistency of 
ideas, for among the German peasants of to-day 
there is a dim notion that an open door ought 
not to be shut suddenly, for fear some soul may 
be passing through and become injured. A 
great many of the customs and sayings of our 
own time refer directly to superstitions that 
once prevailed extensively. 

" If I am not wearying you — " 



94 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" Don't be afraid of that," cried Hiram. " I 
have a sharp appetite, and haven't had half 
enough to eat yet." The old man's eyes glis- 
tened. " It does me good," he added, "to 
know that what I believe has been believed 
everywhere and by everybody. It's not a 
new-fangled notion, but is tangled up with the 
whole race. That makes me feel like shoutin'." 

"The subject is endless," said Jessig, "but 
your patience has its limits. There are, how- 
ever, two or three more facts that I would like 
to refer to. Among the natives of the Indian 
Archipelago, for example, slaves were killed at 
the funeral of a chief, that he might have plenty 
of attendants in his new life. Before they were 
dispatched, the relations of the dead man en- 
joined upon them their duty to keep a watchful 
care over their master, not to leave him on any 
account when he fell ill or was lonely, and to 
be quick in obedience to his orders. This 
warning having been given, the women slightly 
wounded them with a spear-point, after which 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 95 

the men killed them as quickly as possible, that 
they might join their master. 

" Captain Burton relates this further devel- 
opment of the same idea among the natives of 
Dahomey. After a king's death it was deemed 
an act of loyalty to keep him thoroughly in- 
formed as to what was going on. Whenever, 
therefore, a battle was fought, or some impor- 
tant incident happened, a stout fellow who had 
been taken captive received the message which 
was intended for the dead monarch, and, after 
being urged to remember the story and tell it 
in all its details, was killed, in the belief that he 
would carry the news to the other world." 

" That is exceedingly interesting," said the 
Master, " but let me ask this question : When 
you leave these children of nature, and arrive 
among peoples who have reached some stage 
of civilization, does religion seem to be per- 
sistent, or does it begin to lose its hold on 
mankind ? Let me put it in a different way : 
Does what is called progress develop, or does 



96 THEY MET IN. HEAVEN. 

it have a tendency to destroy, the religious 
nature? " 

" It is very important to consider that mat- 
ter," replied Jessig. " If it were true that relig- 
ion was a peculiarity of the race in its unthink- 
ing babyhood, but began to disappear as the 
race advanced, it would be very serious, if not 
conclusive. Nothing, however, is more clear 
than that religion, in some form, has accompa- 
nied the race in its journey from the hut of the 
Kaffir to the imperial splendor of Babylon and 
Nineveh. We have never been without it, or 
felt ourselves able to get on without it. 

" For instance, the people of India were 
almost drenched in religious theories. These 
theories flooded the country, from the mount- 
ains in the north to the sea in the south. As 
to another life, they were by no means satisfied 
with one, but boldly asserted that several 
thousand may be necessary before the soul 
reaches perfection. It goes out of the body at 
death, but must be reincarnated, must return 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 97 

again and again until sin is expiated, and it is 
ready for absorption into the All-in- AH. 

" Persia, which in the time of Darius held for 
tribute a territory extending from the Mediter- 
ranean to the Himalayas, had a delirium of 
theology. There were gods and goddesses in- 
numerable. No one doubted their existence ; 
every one felt daily dependence upon them. 

" The same is true of Egypt, the land of 
mystery and cloudless skies. She had a mul- 
tiplicity of deities, enough to confuse, if not 
terrify, the ordinary mind. As to Greece and 
Rome, you are too familiar with them to need 
reference. Major and minor deities presided 
over war and peace, over life and death, over 
forests and streams, over rain and sunshine, and 
all the products of the ground. 

" As you climb the tower in which each age 
is a stepping-stone to higher things, and look 
out every now and then at the widening horizon 
and brightening landscape, you find that theol- 
ogy gradually loses its material and anthropo- 



98 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

morphic, or human, phase, and becomes more 
complex. At first the god is a giant warrior, 
cruel, despotic, savage, but resistless. Immor- 
tality is accepted as a. fact not to be doubted ; 
but the other world is a place where the sup- 
pressed passions of this life will have full swing. 
All ideas, both of society and of religion, are 
crude, almost shapeless, mixed with drops of 
blood and shouts of victory. When you get 
higher than Olympus, with its gorgeous group 
of deities, you come, after long struggle, to 
Christianity, with its God of wisdom and love, 
with its brotherliness and neighborliness, the 
noblest conception of duty here and of heaven 
hereafter that men have ever cherished — a con- 
ception so grand that most of us agree in de- 
claring it to be a revelation, and not the product 
of a human mind. It is not the result of a 
gradual ascent whose traveled steps you can 
count, but is a sudden uplifting of the soul to a 
loftier plane of motive and action, as though 
some mighty hand had grasped the world and 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. 99 

with a single effort drawn it up to the height 
occupied by the giant who owned the hand. 

" The belief in immortality did not have much 
moral effect on the life of the early race. It 
was so material that the system of duties drawn 
from it was coarse-grained. But Christianity 
tells us of a future which is a home. We are 
to go home ! We are to rejoin those who have 
gone before. Heaven is a holy place, filled with 
the splendor of God's presence, and we therefore 
must lead holy lives, that we may have, in the 
quaint language of Scripture, our ' wedding gar- 
ments ' on when we are summoned." 

"Well," said Hiram, who laid down the 
poker, with which he had been stirring the logs, 
but not losing a word the while, " it makes me 
feel as though this generation was a link in a 
long chain that reaches 'way back to the Garden 
of Eden and reaches for'ard to the Day of 
Jedgment. It ain't no small priv'lege to jine in 
the general chorus that rose from the lips of the 
first people on the globe, and has been increasin' 



IOO THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

in volum' ever sence, and will grow louder and 
louder till we are all gathered 'round the Throne 
of God to shout • Hallelujah!' " 

The little company were impressed by John 
Jessig's talk, and seemed unwilling to break the 
spell of his earnest eloquence by questions. All 
except Hiram, who seemed to be in a state of 
exhilaration, and who broke out once more. 

" This glorious religion! " he cried. "Why, 
while you was talkin', parson, I was thinkin' 
what it was like, what I could compare it to. 
Then this idee come to me. A man gets a 
notion that somewhere in the mountains where 
he has built his hut there must be a lot of gold. 
He don't know why he believes it, but he does. 
And he hunts 'round till he picks up a little 
nugget on the side of a stream. ' I knowed it,' 
he says to himself. ' But there's a good deal 
more hidden away. I'm too old to find it, but 
my boys will continue the work.' And when 
he dies, leavin' nothin' but this nugget mixed 
with rock, his children take up the search. They 



AN UNBROKEN LINE. ioi 

find another nugget, perhaps two or three, and 
then they die. Their children do the same 
thing, and they die. And so the ages pass, 
bigger and bigger pieces of gold bein' found. 
But everybody feels that there is a whole mine 
of it hid away, and they are not satisfied, 
though they acknowledge that what they've got 
is val'able. At last an angel comes and says, 
' You are huntin' for the mine, be ye ? ' and 
they answer, 'Yes.' 'You can't find it your- 
selves,' he says. 'We know that,' they reply, 
' for we've hunted till we're pretty well tuckered 
out.' 'All right,' says the angel, 'you f oiler 
me.' And he leads 'em here, and he leads 'em 
there, and at last, p'intin', he says, ' There it 
is ! ' Then they push away the leaves and the 
dry brush, and they tremble all over, for right 
in sight is gold enough to furnish the whole 
world with plenty. ' Can we have it ? ' they 
ask. ' All you can carry,' says the angel, ' and 
you can keep comin' for more.' 

"When God makes anythin' He makes enough 



102 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

to go 'round, and to spare. And to think that 
we live in a time when the angel has done that 
favor, and that we're among them who can have 
all they want, and can ask their neighbors to 
come and take all they want, too! Think of 
bein' as rich as that! No end to it ! This world 
glorified, and heaven invitin' us ! It's almost 
too much for mortals to bear." 

It was a very delightful session of the club, 
and when we came out into the frosty night a 
million stars peered at us curiously, and the 
hills, white with snow, seemed like the marble 
pillars of a great temple. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A SHOEMAKER'S religion. 

i HAD known Hiram Golf three full months, 
and almost reverenced the man. He had his 
eccentricities, was sometimes brusque in man- 
ner, and always ungrammatical in speech, but 
he had a clear, white soul. As you looked into 
the depths of his gray-blue eyes you felt sure 
that the man behind them was as honest and 
loyal and sympathetic as sunshine on a spring 
morning. I would have made him trustee of 
all my earthly possessions without asking him 
to give bonds. God couldn't make the mistake 
of putting that kind of a head on any human 
shoulders without putting a nobleman's heart 
under the ribs. 

We knew that Hiram's talk would be worth 
listening to, and though it was a rugged sort 
103 



104 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

of night, and the mercury had dropped several 
degrees below zero, and the wind was running 
riot through the Cheroquee Valley, we were all 
present in Jessig's study at least ten minutes 
before the regular hour for meeting. The 
shoemaker was a magnetic creature, and I 
doubt if even Jessig himself was more respected 
by the humble people of Woodbine. He could 
scold and fret and fume, and, on occasion, ex- 
hibit a good deal of rather hot indignation ; but 
it was only when he suspected some trick, some 
unfair dealing in the narrow public life of the 
place, and when this or that well-to-do official 
attempted to manipulate the general opinion in 
order to secure a personal advantage. It was 
not always safe to oppose the plan of such 
an official, for opposition might mean the loss 
of place, no credit at the corner store, no food 
for the children, no coal or wood for the kitchen 
stove. But Hiram never reckoned conse- 
quences. He would take the floor in the old 
tumbledown town-hall, that hadn't been painted 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. 



I05 



for twenty years, and make the rafters ring. 
As a general thing he carried his point, for, 
after all, men prefer to do what is right, if they 
have a bold and fearless leader who is himself 
above suspicion. 

On this particular night Hiram was in a very 
happy mood. "I propose," he began, '" to 
chat a little while about a matter that used to 
tangle me all up, but which has been pretty 
clear for the last ten year. I ain't presumin' to 
teach this company nothin', but I'll jest put a 
match to the discussion, and then you can use 
the bellers and make it blaze as much as you 
please. 

" I have a notion that we've got too much 
theology in the world, and too little religion. 
Now that's my startin'-p'int. Men is bein' 
ruined by theology, and there ain't religion 
enough to go 'round. What we want is to sell 
off all our speckerlations about God and start in 
to do God's will. When I was younger, I had 
an idee that if men would think right, they'd 



106 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

pretty soon get to do right; but I've come to 
believe that the propersition has got to be turned 
t'other end to, and we'll make more progress if 
we say that if a man will do right he'll pretty 
soon believe right." 

" You wouldn't depreciate the value of the- 
ology as a background for religion, I hope," 
suggested Jessig. 

" Perhaps I wouldn't," was the rejoinder, 
" and then again I don't know but I would. I 
am sure, anyhow, that a man can be a deep 
theologian and not know much about vital relig- 
ion, and a man can be a genuine Christian and 
not know nothin' about theology. 

" In my jedgment, theology is a theory about 
God that is manufactured by men who may be 
right or may be wrong, while religion is simply 
God's sayin' to me, * I made you to be My 
child, and I want you to act as though you was.' 

" Theology is for them that can understand 
it, and that's mighty few ; and even the few 
don't agree among themselves. Religion is for 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. 107 

everybody. Theology is a luxury, but religion 
is one of the necessaries of life. Leastwise, that 
is the way I look at it." 

" I hardly think you are fair, Hiram," broke 
in Jessig. " The Church is founded on certain 
ideas, and its purpose is to propagate those 
ideas. They are contained in what is called the 
creed, and the creed is necessary to organized 
action. Take the creed away, and where would 
the Church be? Take a man's spinal column 
aw T ay, and the man is simply a lump of jelly." 

" I don't agree," cried Hiram, " I don't agree, 
parson. Your figger about a man's backbone 
don't hold good ; it's very deceivin'. The 
backbone of your religion isn't your subscribin' 
to certain propersitions about Christ, but your 
willin'ness to foller Him. Take the case of 
Will Black, who shoed horses at the corner. 
You remember him, parson ? He led a pretty 
stormy life, I reckon. What with bad comp'ny, 
and a wife that driv him out of the house 'cos 
there wasn't no comfort in it, he slid down till 



108 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

there wasn't no lower place to slide to. You 
got a grip on him yourself, parson, when he 
was took with pneumony and like to die. You 
had a heavy tussle with the devil that time, but 
after a while Will saw that things looked shaky, 
and promised to reform. We clung to him day 
and night for three months, and then he sorter 
caught hold of himself and began to be a man. 
W 7 hen he come to you on a Saturday night 
and told you he wanted to jine the Church, 
there was tears in your eyes, parson, for I saw 
'em. When you named the conditions of jining 
the Church, you handled the subjec' very deli- 
cate, and it was proper you should. You asked 
him about God, and he was all right, and he 
said he would pray and try to be saved, and 
trust in Christ to help him along. But when 
the rest of the creed was read, he simply said 
he didn't know nothin' about it. It might be 
so, and it might not. He wasn't scholar enough 
to find out, and it had never occurred to him to 
have any opinions on those subjects. 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. 1 09 

" There was only two things he was dead 
sure of, and them was, that he was bound to 
come out right, and couldn't do it unless the 
Lord took special pains to lift him over the hard 
places. 

" Now, parson, these are the words you used 
on that occasion, and they made me shout 
' Hallelujah ! ' You said, ' Will Black, if you 
feel that you need a Saviour, you shall jine this 
church next communion day.' And, parson, 
he did, and you hain't been sorry for it since. 
Three quarters of the reg'lar creed went for 
nothin', and jest a confidin' trust in the Lord 
did the whole business. 

" It was in the time of Parson Flood," con- 
tinued Hiram, " that I came to this conclusion. 
He was a good man and a noble preacher, but 
he was fond of discussin' doctrines, and the 
church kinder petered out. One partic'lar ser- 
mon that acted on my mind in an irritatin' way 
was on God's foreknowledge and man's free 
will. I follered him till I got fairly out of 



I I O THE Y ME T IN HE A PEN. 

breath, and then give it up, and took a nap. I 
guess most of the rest did the same thing, for it 
was a hot afternoon, and the sermon had to be 
pretty stirrin' to keep us awake. 

" Now on Monday, while at my workbench, 
I kept thinkin' on that subjec', and the more I 
thought the wuss off I was. I got so wild that 
at last I couldn't tell a pair of boy's slippers 
from old Deacon Quimby's number 'levens. 
Then I sung out to my wife : 

"'Marthy! Marthy! ' 

" ' Yes, Hiram,' says she, for she was in the 
next room. 

" ' Come here,' says I. 

" When she came, she says, ' Hiram, what's 
the matter? Your eyes is rollin', and your face 
is red.' 

" Says I, ' Marthy, have you always con- 
sidered me a man of good sense? ' 

" ' Not remarkable,' answers she, ' not re- 
markable, Hiram, but somethin' above the aver- 
age.' 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. \\\ 

" Then I put down my hammer, and went to 
the winder for a breath of air. ' That subjec',' 
says I to myself, ' is likely to torment the life 
out of every man who thinks about it. You 
can't deny either propersition, and you can't 
reconcile 'em. So there you be. Nobody 
that isn't above the average in intellec' can 
make any thin' out of it. Therefore,' says I, 'it 
ain't necessary to salvation, which is the chief 
thing I'm lookin' for.' From that day to this 
I hain't thought of it, and I don't intend to 
think of it in the future." 

" Hiram," said the Master, " it would be very 
interesting if you would relate that part of your 
personal history in which you convinced your- 
self that you needed some kind of religion in 
order to make your life profitable. We don't 
wish to be intrusive, and my motive is not one 
of mere curiosity. The processes of spiritual 
development are always accompanied by special 
experiences, and I am sure you have had many 
of them." 



I I 2 THE Y MET IN HE A VEN. 

" Wall," began Hiram, " it's a simple story, 
hardly worth listenin' to, I expect ; but sech as 
it is, it is at your service. I was one of them 
who keep goin' down and don't begin to climb 
until they touch bottom. They asked me to 
believe so much when I was young, that I 
concluded I'd risk gettin' along with believin' 
nothin'. I was like the feller goin' up hill with 
a load of apples, and the tailboard of his cart 
dropped out, and when he got to the top he 
didn't have a single apple. I was loaded up 
with doctrines, but they got away from me one 
after the other, until not one of 'em was left. 
I had an empty cart and an empty heart. 
That's the way I trudged along for nigh onto 
ten year. 

" What started me on the right track was old 
Deacon Badger, who was long before your time, 
parson. The deacon was the piousest man on 
Sunday I ever see, but it was terrible danger- 
ous to trade hosses with him on Monday. 

" When he was bein' buried, a hard-headed 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. 113 

old feller said to me, ' Hiram,' says he, ' reck- 
onin'-day comes to all on us, and it's come to 
the deacon. I rather suspect that the Lord 
won't pay much attention to the deacon's Sun- 
day, but'll sorter remark to him, " Deacon 
Badger, before we settle your affairs, we'll take 
a look at some of them hoss-trades of yourn," 
and the old man will wish he hadn't done a 
good many things.' 

" That set me to thinkin', and I had a pretty 
restless time of it for a whole month. You see, 
the deacon had about all the doctrines he could 
hold, and every one of 'em was sound and jest 
as orthodox as they could be. But the Lord 
would skip the doctrine and take up the hoss- 
trades. ' Well,' says I to myself, ' that looks 
like business ; and if there's any religion any- 
where that puts honesty of life fust and fore- 
most, I guess I'll take a peek at it, and see 
how it'll suit my case.' 

" So I took my New Testament down, and, 
without sayin' nothin' to nobody, began to 



114 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

make up my own mind about things. Thinks 
I, ' I'm not goin' to Parson Burnham to find out 
what this means. I'm goin' straight to Christ 
Himself. If I like what He says, and it seems 
reasonable, I'll foller; and if I don't like it, I 
won't; that's the long and short of it.' I was 
sittin' under a hay-mow that August afternoon, 
and my eyes lighted on this passage in the 
Gospel of Luke : ' For the Son of Man is come 
to seek and to save that which was lost.' 
' Well,' thinks I, ' that is a very p'inted and 
personal remark. It means me, Hiram Golf, 
the young scapegrace, if it means anythin'. He 
came on purpose to save some one, and He is 
so determined to do it that He don't wait for 
the sinner to come to Him.' There was some- 
thin' rather hospitable and friendly and touchin' 
about that, and I kep' ponderin' it until nigh 
sundown. That's where I started. 

" Then I thought I should like to know what 
this Seeker after my soul wanted me to do, and 
another passage met my eye. It was in Mat- 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. 115 

thew, and it said : ' The Son of Man hath not 
where to lay His head.' It seemed to me 
rather cur'us that the Bein' who come to save 
the lost shouldn't find no place where He could 
be comfortable. Thinks I, ' Is that quite a fair 
statement? He did have friends, and they 
were always glad to see Him.' I kep' those 
words in my mind, until it come to me that it 
didn't refer to His body, but to His soul, and 
He meant that after lookin' over the world 
there wasn't no place where His new ideas of 
God and duty and heaven could find a restin'- 
place. Thinks I to myself, ' The Lord is right, 
Hiram. Take your own soul, for example. Is 
there any corner of it where the Saviour could 
find a home for Himself?' And I was com- 
pelled to answer that there wasn't. If other 
folks was like me, coarse and selfish, there was 
somethin' to make the tears come in them 
words, ' The foxes have holes, and the birds of 
the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not 
where to lay His head.' 



I 1 6 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" I determined that if the Lord and I could 
agree — and it looked as though we was goin' 
to — I'd make a place where He should always 
find a welcome. Still, I wanted to look further. 
My sympathies was roused, but I like to go into 
things with my eyes open, so I read a good 
deal more before comin' to a conclusion. I 
found that the fust thing was to repent. That 
didn't seem hard, because I saw plain enough 
that my way of livin' wasn't square and wouldn't 
satisfy me. ' All right,' thinks I, ' I am sorry 
for the past, and want to get hold of something 
better.' 

" Then next the Teacher said, ' Our Father, 
which art in heaven.' He didn't speak of His 
Father and nobody's else. What He taught 
wasn't narrer like that. It was ( Our Father,' 
which meant a powerful lot to me. I haven't no 
right to say 'My Father,' but I must pray just 
as though the human race was all children to- 
gether, and we should recognize that fact every 
time we use the word 'our.' I can't tell you 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. nj 

how I felt when I saw what a big thing that 
kind of religion is; and it was cur'us that soon 
afterward I should stumble on those two verses 
in which Christ sums up the whole duty of man 
in these words : ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy mind.' That, He said, was 
commandment number one, and number two 
was, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' 
I trembled from head to foot when I thought 
that them two commandments was about all 
there was to ' the law and the prophets.' 

"'Why,' says I, 'there ain't nothin' to dis- 
agree about. You couldn't get up a discussion 
on them questions if you tried to. It don't 
need no study to understand sech requirements. 
The greatest scholar and the most ignorant 
loom-tender could shake hands as to the pro- 
priety of doin' both of them things. 

" ' Now,' says I, ' I guess I've got where I 
want to be. I don't see how God could pos- 
sibly look down and see all of His creatures 



I I 8 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

goin' astray without sendin' some one to help 
put things right ; and if He sent any message 
at all, it was just my idee that He would send 
the one I've been talkin' about. He couldn't 
keep silent, and He couldn't send no better 
word than that. So,' I says, ' that's my kind 
of religion. I've been a long time gettin' to it, 
but I've arrived at last, and if the Lord wants 
my help He shall have it.' 

" I went down on my knees that night, and I 
said, ' O Lord, Hiram has been pretty well 
rattled in the past, and there's a good many 
things he'd like to have You forget. Cover up 
my sins, for the dear Lord's sake, and make use 
of me any way You see fit.' 

" That was my conversion, and from that 
time to this I ain't had no doubts. 

i( But when I got all through, I said to my- 
self, ' Hullo, Hiram, where is them doctrines 
that Parson Flood used to preach about, and 
pound the pulpit cushion till us boys watched 
the dust fly and grew frightened?' And I 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. 119 

answered, ' Hiram, if Christ didn't say much 
about 'em, you can afford to keep still.' So I 
haven't bothered myself to find out whether I 
accepted the creed or not, but have been satis- 
fied to accept Christ, and foller Him in my 
shoemaker's way." 

Van Brunt was a curious study during this 
long recital. He had evidently anticipated very 
little pleasure, and at the beginning of the 
evening had an air of despondency and weari- 
ness. Perhaps Hiram's bad grammar and his 
homely similes annoyed him, or possibly he was 
too preoccupied to enter into the spirit of the 
occasion. At any rate, he was listless, and for 
a time wholly indifferent. 

But when the shoemaker grew warm and 
earnest, Van Brunt, I noticed, turned around in 
his chair, that he might get a better view of the 
shoemaker's face, and before the speaker had 
finished he had captured Van Brunt's entire 
attention. Indeed, he was the first to ask a 
question. 



120 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

"Hiram," he said, "when a man is in the 
midst of trouble, do you think it possible to 
love the God who sent it? Can you respect a 
being who gives you a tremendous blow? " 

" That depends on what kind of a God 
you've got, and what He give you the blow 
for," was the ready answer. " If God is simply 
exhibitin' His power when He hits you, I don't 
think I should praise Him very much; but if 
He hurts in order to help, you may feel the 
pain of the hurt, but you needn't blame Him 
for doin' it. When Widow Bigelow's son Rob- 
ert got run over, we had a surgeon come up 
from the city, with his knives and needles. 
He looked the boy all over, and then said, 
' Robert, I'm goin' to hurt you, but no more 
than I can help. If I do this, you will get well, 
and be as strong as ever; if I don't do it, I 
can't answer for the consequences.' I was 
lookin' on at the time, and I guess I grew faint, 
for, I had to set down and open the winder for 
fresh air. Robert couldn't keep from groanin', 



A SHOEMAKER'S RELIGION. 12 I 

for there was six stitches to be took, and a lot 
of probin' to be done, which ain't exac'ly pleas- 
ant. But he stood it, and got well, and is doin' 
day's work at the mill this winter. The surgeon 
wasn't cruel, though he seemed so. He was 
doin' the best thing for the boy, and at the 
same time hurtin' him awful bad. That's the 
way it is with God." 

"The power to endure affliction," added the 
Master, " depends very largely on your mental 
attitude. If you have faith that there is a holy 
purpose in it, as there was in the surgeon's 
knife that Hiram speaks of, you minimize the 
actual and necessary suffering ; but if you feel 
that an invisible being is wrenching you out of 
caprice, your helplessness adds to your agony. 
The heaviest blow that love gives is not so hard 
to bear as the slightest touch of the finger of 
hate. Despotism is one thing ; discipline is 
quite different. The despot afflicts for his own 
pleasure ; the Father disciplines for the suf- 
ferer's good." 



122 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

"And can it be true," persisted Van Brunt, 
" that if I become enamored of the beauty of 
Christ's life and do my honest endeavor to 
follow His example, loving my fellowmen and 
forgiving my enemies, throwing myself on His 
mercy to blot out my shortcomings — can it be 
true that that short ' credo ' is all that is abso- 
lutely necessary to salvation? " 

His face flushed as he said this, and his eyes 
gleamed with a brightness which denoted con- 
siderable excitement. 

Hiram, sitting at the right of the big fire- 
place, simply nodded assent. 

" Then religion, such a religion," said Van 
Brunt, " so far from being a mystery, is the 
simplest thing in the world, and the most 
attractive, and the most beautiful." 

The talk ran on smoothly for another half- 
hour, and then Jessig brought in the urn and 
gave us a cup of steaming hot coffee before we 
went out into the frosty night. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WHERE IS HEAVEN? 

Of all the discussions of that memorable 
winter, the one that most sharply impressed 
itself on my memory was on the subject of 
immortality. This is perhaps natural, because 
the intensest yearnings of the human heart 
reach out in that direction. 

The discussion came about in this wise. We 
had all been to a tearless funeral that after- 
noon ; not tearless because grief was shallow, 
but because it was too deep to find relief in 
sobs. The Widow Grindley had lost her only 
child. 

Poverty had been her daily companion for 

years, but she had become accustomed to its 

pinching cruelty, and bore it with wonderful 

patience. Her life was like one long Novem- 

123 



124 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

ber day — a fretting chill in the air, a nipping 
frost on the window-pane, dull gray clouds 
throwing their somber shadows on the fields. 
But she minded none of these things, for she 
had Harry, a curly-headed boy of ten, who 
used to cheer the weary mother's soul by tell- 
ing her that he should find a fortune some 
day, would marry the most beautiful girl in the 
world, the veritable daughter of a veritable 
king, and then build a palace of gold for her, 
where great genii would come up from the 
floor like a cloud of smoke, and do whatever 
she told them to. She should have a dozen 
of them, and they would have nothing to do 
except to bring her everything she wanted. 
While he was painting the future in these 
glowing colors, he ate his supper of bread and 
milk as contentedly as though he had been a 
prince. She sighed as his lips trembled with 
excitement in the recital, but could not find it 
in her heart to check his enthusiasm. The 
world was all magic to the imaginative boy, 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 125 

and he grew eloquent as he said, " Mamma, 
I'm growing fast, and it won't be long before I 
shall be a man, and then — " but the little 
fellow got sleepy by that time, and was soon 
tucked up in bed. The mother kissed his eye- 
lids, and told the dear Lord that she didn't care 
for the palace and the genii, but hoped He 
would spare Harry and make him an honest 
man. 

That afternoon, however, we buried him. 
Kind neighbors crowded the humble parlor and 
offered such words of sympathy as they could 
command, but they knew, and we all knew, 
that words, though never so well chosen, could 
afford no relief. The poor mother was dazed, 
and when I looked at her white face and stony 
stare I knew that she must weep or her heart 
would break. 

John Jessig was an angel of light on that 
occasion. His voice was so like an echo at first 
that it reminded me of a distant strain of music. 
He spoke for nearly twenty minutes, and in 



126 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

such an assuring way and in such simple lan- 
guage that I was profoundly affected. When 
he mentioned Harry's name, and declared that 
the dream of his childhood would be realized, 
that he was really getting ready the palace 
of gold which he had so often described, and 
would some day welcome the mother, I heard 
first a moan from the corner of the room, and 
then a stifled cry of agony. After that came 
the flood of tears which perhaps saved the good 
woman's life. 

In the evening, as we all sat about the bright 
and cheery fire, that burial scene was the up- 
permost thought in everybody's mind. 

The Master said, pithily and with great 
pathos, " The immortal life makes this life 
endurable. If a man has no future he has no 
present. To-morrow's sun shining on to-day 
makes the path easy to climb. If we are never 
to wake when we sleep, it is a pity we are here 
at all. Tell that mourning woman that her boy 
is under the sod, and you crush her ; tell her 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? I 27 

he is in heaven, and she finds solace in the 
stars, for they whisper strange things in her 
ears, glad tidings of great joy." 

Then silence fell upon us, broken only by 
the crackling of the blazing logs. We were all 
thinking of that desolate home, of the widowed 
and childless mother, and of the dear Christ 
who said to a sorrowing world, " Let not your 
heart be troubled. I go to prepare a place for 
you, that where I am, there ye may be also." 

The silence had perhaps lasted five minutes, 
when Jessig reached out his hand, took down a 
volume of Jean Ingelow, and in an impressive 
voice read these lines : 

" 'And yet I know, past all doubting, truly, 
A knowledge greater than grief can dim, 
I know, as He loved, He will love me duly, 
Yea, better, e'en better than I love Him. 

" 'And as I walk by the vast, calm river, 
The awful river so dread to see, 
I say, " Thy breadth and thy depth forever 

Are bridged by His thoughts that cross to me." ' ' 



I 2 8 THE Y ME T IN HE A FEN 

I can't describe the effect of those simple 
words upon us all. Hiram bowed his head on 
his broad chest and whispered, " Thank God! " 
But Van Brunt's face was a study for a painter. 
He tried to look stern, or at least indifferent, 
but the effort was futile. His lips twitched, 
and he never knew that I saw two tears steal 
down his wan and troubled face. 

"But why," he hoarsely whispered, "why 
must these things be ? What is the meaning 
of separation, and what good purpose can it 
possibly subserve ? " then sank back exhausted. 

"The discipline of life," answered the Mas- 
ter, very tenderly, for he had long ago learned 
something of Van Brunt, " the discipline of life 
is the best that Omniscience could devise to 
make the soul all He intended it to be. 

" If man were a mere machine, he would run 
smoothly from the beginning to the end ; but 
since he is a free agent, he must be taught to 
choose the good. Man's will and God's meth- 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 



129 



ods, working in unison, produce a saint. Man's 
will and God's methods in antagonism produce 
misery. The purpose of religion is to bring 
man and God together, into conscious commu- 
nication with each other, that man, seeing God's 
fatherliness, may learn how to say, ' Not my 
will, but Thine.' " 

Hiram looked up from the fire and said, 
" Brother, in heaven we shall learn that the 
Master is right. Lookin' for'ard, it seems dark ; 
lookin' back, it will be made clear. Death is 
the only path to the top, and death is not to be 
reckoned a misfortune, but a priv'lege." 

"That is strange doctrine," answered Van 
Brunt, with something like a sigh. 

"I'm not overstatin' it, am I, parson?" con- 
tinued Hiram. " So I thought. The Apostle 
went as far as that when he said, ' To die is 
gain.' He was only half willin' to stay, but 
even that surprises me, since he knew what the 
Lord had stored up for him. He was in a hurry 



130 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

to begin the enjoyment of heaven, as we should 
be if the other life was as clear to us as it was 
to him." 

" Ah, yes," cried Van Brunt, "but who can 
have a faith like that — a faith that looks up and 
says, ' I am sure ' — a faith that anticipates the 
change with pleasure? It is impossible, impos- 
sible ! Heaven is so vague, so misty, and so 
mysterious ! It is a good deal like our concep- 
tion of Nowhere." 

"That is our mistake," broke in the Master. 
"The world has that notion — and a very per- 
sistent notion it is — and therefore the world 
looks upon death with dread. But give heaven 
a location, think of it as you think of France or 
Germany, teach your soul that when it leaves 
the body it will go to a place, will enjoy the 
companionship of those it loved in this life, and 
all fear is gone, and in its stead is high antici- 
pation." 

" But where is your authority for such an 
assertion?" asked Van Brunt, nervously. 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 131 

" For the assertion that heaven is a distinct 
location, and not, as so many preachers tell us, 
' a state ' ? " 

Van Brunt nodded his head wearily. 

" I find it everywhere in the New Testa- 
ment," was the answer. "Yes, everywhere. 
' I go to prepare a place for you.' To the poor 
creature on the cross by His side Jesus said, 
'This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.' 
The Book of Revelation furnishes us with an 
entrancing picture of ' the Holy City,' giving us 
the details of its materials and measurements." 

" And do you take all that as a statement of 
fact? " asked Van Brunt. 

" In a very important sense, yes," was the 
answer. " John's vision has been accepted as a 
part of God's authorized Word. He caught a 
glimpse of heaven, and it seemed to him to be 
as material as the earth and the cities thereof. 
Then he saw it no more; but 'the Holy City,' 
though invisible, is as truly there as ever, and 
we shall be numbered among its citizens." 



132 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" I am glad to hear you say that," remarked 
Jessig, "for it seems to me essential to a vital 
faith. As Mr. Van Brunt said a few minutes 
ago, heaven to most people is as impossible to 
locate as Nowhere. But why should we enter- 
tain such vague notions when the plain truth is 
within reach ? While the soul is connected with 
the body it has a local habitation. Whether it 
can, under any circumstances, make excursions 
from the body or not, I cannot say ; but at any 
rate, the body is its natural domicile, which it 
owns in fee simple, the title being granted by 
the Creator of both. Why, then, should not 
the soul have a local habitation when it ex- 
changes the physical body for what St. Paul 
calls the spiritual body? For myself, I can't 
conceive of a soul not occupying space." 

" But we can see the body," broke in Van 
Brunt. " Why, then, can't we see the soul, if 
there is one? " 

"Because," answered Jessig, "we look with 
physical eyes and can therefore only see physi- 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 133 

cal things. When souls leave their bodies and 
go into the other life to occupy spiritual bodies, 
there is nothing strange in the fact that we can't 
see either the soul or the spiritual body with the 
rude instrument of physical vision, but that is 
no argument for their non-existence." 

The Master bowed his head in approval. 

" Behold the marvel of marvels," he said. 
" For a time the soul, which is always visible to 
the angels and to God, dwells in a tenement 
made of material so much coarser than itself 
that while it can see the body the body cannot 
catch sight of it. If you lock a quantity of 
oxygen gas in a glass jar, the gas might see the 
jar, but the jar could not see the gas. The gas 
is no less real than the jar, and the jar is no 
more real than the gas, and invisibility or vis- 
ibility has nothing to do with the facts of the 
case. A thousand glass jars might meet in sol- 
emn conclave for the purpose of investigation, 
honestly desiring to get at the truth ; but what 
could they discover? They might conclude 



134 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

that there was probably something in the jar, 
but they could go no further. 

" Without revelation, that is where the argu- 
ment for immortality stands to-day. Natural 
religion makes another life probable, but that is 
all. Christ, however, not only preached immor- 
tality, but in His own person exhibited it." 

" Pray explain," cried Van Brunt, whose 
cheeks w r ere flushed with excitement. 

"The historic Christ," continued the Master, 
" was in all points like ourselves. What hap- 
pened to Him, therefore, may happen to us. 
He died and was placed in the tomb. The last 
farewells were said, and His tearful followers, 
just as doubtful of a literal resurrection as many 
of us, went their several ways in mournful, if 
not bitter, disappointment. But the end had 
not come. There was another act in that trag- 
edy, and on that the hope and faith of the 
whole world depend. Christ said to His disci- 
ples, ' On the third day I will rise again ; ' but 
the statement must have been accepted with 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 



135 



hesitation, for there is no record of any one 
who believed it could be true. It was too 
great a fact for mere fishermen and their friends 
to appreciate, or for any one else, however 
learned he might be. But on that third day the 
tomb was empty. That was appalling ; but there 
were ways, so they said, to account for the dis- 
appearance. The body had perhaps been stolen 
while the guards slept. But afterward, this very 
Christ who had made the prediction appeared 
on various occasions to His disciples. They 
walked with Him, they talked with Him, not 
once, but at least three times, and their testi- 
mony is a part of the record. 

" Christ was visible, and then again He was 
invisible. This was accomplished perhaps by 
the exercise of agencies not known to us. 
While the disciples were talking, He was gone. 
When they assembled in ' the upper room ' the 
doors were shut, and yet He was suddenly in 
their midst. Some have declared that there is 
a fourth dimension of space which makes this 



136 THEY MET IN HE AVE X. 

possible. I do not know. I take the story as 
it stands, and accept the truth it teaches. 

" Soul and body live together for a time. 
When the soul goes, that is the end of the 
body ; when the body goes, that is not the end 
of the soul. The house may be pulled down, 
but the man who lived in it may go forth and 
seek another home for himself." 

Van Brunt simply remarked, " That is all 
very beautiful, if one can believe it." 

"What you wish to emphasize, I take it," 
added Jessig, " is the fact that soul occupies 
space just as truly as body does. The oxygen 
gas occupied space just as truly as the glass jar 
did. You can't conceive of the soul not being 
somewhere, in some place, and Jesus made it 
plain when He referred to the ' house not made 
with hands.' A house as much as this is! ' In 
My Father's house are many mansions.' It is 
always a real soul and a real place. Our diffi- 
culty is that we dream an immortality, but dc 
not personally realize it." 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 137 

"Well," said Hiram, "that is tremendously 
interestin'. I've puzzled over that many a time 
when I was drivin' pegs, but somehow it always 
got away from me. Why, of course ; I wonder 
I didn't think of it before. God can see us, 
and the angels can see each other, but no man 
ever sees his feller-man, only the tenement he 
lives in. And so some people come to believe 
that there ain't no man inside the tenement. 
Bimeby, though, when we get spiritual bodies, 
the eyes will be better instruments to look 
through, and then we shall see each other for 
the first time." 

It was evident that Van Brunt was still un- 
satisfied. There were other questions which he 
wanted to ask, and he moved restlessly in his 
chair. 

" But if this eternal home is in some place," 
he said, " where is that place ? Can we know 
anything about it? Can we locate it? Or do 
we get just so far and then the fog settles down 
and we are helpless ? The longing to know 



138 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

more is painful, but, it seems to me, entirely 
natural." 

" I don't know that it is necessary," resumed 
the Master," to know the latitude and longitude 
of heaven, to have it laid down on our celestial 
chart as London or Berlin is marked on our 
maps. If we know that it is somewhere, either 
near the earth or in interstellar regions, and that 
it is not so far away but that the departed can 
return to succor and encourage us, we have the 
important facts. If we believe that they are 
engaged in various ministries, are pursuing cer- 
tain vocations — " 

" Yes, yes," interrupted Van Brunt, " that, I 
see, is the second point you wish to make, and 
my curiosity is aroused. You said at the first 
meeting of this club that our religious views 
should be based on common sense. What, then, 
can you say of the occupations of those who 
have gone? Surely the old worn-out story of 
an eternal vocal exercise, of continuous harping 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 139 

and singing, does not commend itself to the 
rational mind." 

" Not to mine," cried Hiram, " not to mine. 
It would be pretty dull business for me to set 
down to a harp, for I hain't no ear for music. 
I reckon that after the first half- hour the Lord 
would say, ' Hiram, I guess you'd better stow 
that thing in the corner somewhere. You're 
excused from the musical part of the program.' ' 

"The heaven you describe," said the Master 
to Van Brunt, " would be exceedingly unat- 
tractive. In a word, it wouldn't be heaven at 
all. You are right in saying our common sense 
does not accept such a picture. Of course, 
those employments which are dependent on our 
physical organs will be dispensed with. There 
will be no money-making, no building of houses, 
no pursuits which have their origin in avarice or 
selfishness. But these are characteristic of man 
on his lowest plane." 

"Then some men," suggested Hiram, "will 



I40 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

have a very small amount of raw material left 
to begin the new life with, and it will take 'em 
quite a while to get used to it." 

" That is only another way of saying," re- 
marked Jessig, " that if a man soaks himself in 
this worldliness, he will not be well equipped 
for the order of things in heaven ; and it is en- 
tirely true. He will be a stranger on the other 
shore, and — " 

" And he will be a little child," broke in the 
Master, " with this difference, that he will not 
have the child's innocence. This world demands 
and should receive a devoted attention ; but to 
live as though there were no other life, to have 
your whole nature centered in the pleasures that 
are connected with the body, is the mistake 
which religion was designed to warn us against." 

" Yes," said Van Brunt, " but take the man 
of intellect, the astronomer, the philosopher, the 
mathematician, the lover of art — these are cer- 
tainly no mean pursuits, and yet you would not 
say — " 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 141 

" Why not? " asked Jessig. 

" I hardly know why not, and yet they seem 
to me inconsistent with the joys of heaven." 

" I can't quite agree with you," said the 
Master. " Eating and drinking, sensuous as 
well as sensual indulgence, the rivalries of busi- 
ness, are not characteristic of the ideal man, but 
the pursuits of the intellect are. The astrono- 
mer will have ample opportunity for investiga- 
tion, and the chemist and philosopher likewise. 
There is a wide field which cannot be explored 
in this life, and there is no reason why those 
studies should not be pursued hereafter." 

"Then your heaven," persisted Van Brunt, 
"is for the gifted only — a select heaven, in 
which the poor man has no place." 

"On the contrary," cried Jessig. "The cry 
of the poor man has been ringing through the 
ages, namely, that his necessities press him so 
closely that he is intellectually undeveloped. 
He wants only eight hours of labor instead of 
twelve, that he may have some home life, may 



142 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

train himself for a higher grade of citizenship, 
and give his mind and soul a chance to widen. 
In the other world, where the need of daily 
sustenance will not enslave him, he will have 
the very opportunity for which he has been 
calling. He can then become a real man, and 
do the things which he says he has always 
wanted to do but couldn't." 

" Aren't you making the other life a good 
deal like this one? " asked Van Brunt. 

" Certainly," said the Master, " like, but bet- 
ter. The man will not change at death. If 
God was satisfied when He created man, why 
should death do more than give him a larger 
opportunity? Heaven will be the high-school 
in the system of universal education, in which 
this is but the primary school. Hiram, what 
do you think? " 

f ' Well, I reckon I should miss my lapstone 
and my awl, and my crutch and my rheuma- 
tism for a while, but I rather think I could get 
along without 'em. My idee is that I shall be 



WHERE IS HE A VEN? 1 4 3 

just as much Hiram Golf the day after death as 
I shall be the day before." 

" We shall all be changed in the twinkling of 
an eye," broke in Van Brunt. 

"Yes, I hope so," answered Hiram, quickly. 
" I do indeed hope and believe so. And if the 
Lord should come down to the earth, and I 
hobbled up to Him and caught hold of His 
garment, as I certainly should, and He should 
turn and say, ' Hiram, throw that crutch away, 
and be young again,' my rheumatism would go 
in the twinklin' of an eye, and I'd make kin- 
dlin'-wood of the crutch, and I'd dance as I did 
when I was twenty. But I should be Hiram 
all the same. If the Lord should say to me, 
' Hiram Golf, be somebody else, be Elijah Wil- 
kins, be Jon'than Higby,' that would be pretty 
serious. Hiram Golf would die right there on 
the spot, and there would be some one else 
standin' in his shoes. If death is goin' as far 
as that, then there ain't no immortality for me. 
It's only a figger of speech, and don't mean 



1 44 THE Y ME T IN HE A VEN. 

nothin'. No, I've got to be Hiram all the way 
along, changin', of course, to suit my new sur- 
roundin's, but not changin' so that I won't 
know myself. Isn't that so, parson?" 

"Yes," said Jessig, "you have the truth of 
the matter. We began with our common sense, 
and we've looked at things in the light of it 
ever since, and it won't do to give it up now." 

" But all this seems to me very material," sug- 
gested Van Brunt. 

" And very real," added Hiram. 

" Then if we preserve our personality we may 
also preserve our affections," remarked Van 
Brunt. 

" That is the third point to which our at- 
tention should be directed," said the Master. 
" The conclusion which Mr. Van Brunt draws 
is inevitable. It is the necessary deduction 
from the teaching of the New Testament. 
Certain physical relations will cease, but all 
soulful relations will continue. Love doesn't 
die, is not buried in the grave. The dear ones, 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 145 

nearer the throne than we, love us still. Our 
love for God and Christ is unbroken. It will 
be the same then that it is now, only purer and 
deeper. If this love of God continues, why 
not our other loves? " 

" And they think of us? " asked Van Brunt, 
nervously. 

Jessig repeated these lines — by the way, he 
reads poetry admirably — 

" 'Are there voices in the valley 

Lying near the heavenly gate? 
When it opens, do the harp-strings, 
Touched within, reverberate? 

" ' When, like shooting stars, the angels 
To your couch at nightfall go, 
Are their swift wings heard to rustle? 
Tell me! for you know.' " 

" If they were in Europe and we in America," 
said the Master, " they would think of us. 
Why should they not think of us, though 
they are in heaven and we on earth? They 
carry themselves into the other life, and mem- 



146 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

ory is a part of themselves. If they remember 
us, do you see any reason why they should 
cease to love us? " 

"Then," began Van Brunt, but he suddenly 
stopped. " Pardon me," he went on the next 
instant, " I have already engrossed too much of 
your attention," and he sank back in his chair, 
heated and flushed. 

" On the contrary," said Jessig, "your ques- 
tions have been pertinent and important. They 
have, in fact, given shape to the evening's dis- 
cussion." 

" I hesitate," said Van Brunt, with suppressed 
excitement, " from a purely selfish motive, I 
fear. If my question could only be answered 
according to my hope! But no, I think not." 

" Perhaps not," said the Master, very quietly. 
" Still, if it is in the line of our talk, you 
should feel perfectly free." 

" I wanted to say," Van Brunt continued, in 
a husky voice, " that only one thing is left to 
be desired. You have spoken of a real soul, of 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 147 

a real heaven, which is a real place, and of a 
personality which triumphs over death. If our 
dear ones are there, and they do love us still, is 
it wholly impossible for them under any cir- 
cumstances to communicate with us? I fear 
you think me rash, but I cannot help it." 

We held our breath for an instant, for Van 
Brunt was in deadly earnest, and tremulous 
with violent emotions. No one but the Master 
had a right to reply, and we waited for him to 
break the silence. 

" Do you believe," he said, in a half whisper, 
" do you believe that God your Father is with 
you when you call on Him, that He veritably 
answers your prayer because He hears it, as 
you might hear your child's voice? " 

" I can't help believing it," was the response. 

" I hope so," continued the Master. " If 
your child were sick or in a strait, and should 
cry to you, would you hear it? " 

" O Heaven!" cried Van Brunt, as though 
in anguish, " of course I would." 



148 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" Is God less fatherly than you?" and the 
Master seemed like a prophet of old. He, too, 
was excited, but it did not show in his manner. 

Van Brunt leaned forward to catch every 
word, and the muscles of his face twitched, and 
his hands moved restlessly. 

" Do you remember that Jesus said, ' I will 
not leave you comfortless ; I will come to 
you ' ? And do you recall that other wondrous 
promise, ' If a man love Me, he will keep My 
words, and My Father will love him, and We ' 
— that is, both the Father and Himself — ' We 
will come unto him, and make Our abode with 
him ' ? " 

" Yes, yes," almost moaned Van Brunt, " but 
is it possible? Is it a fact or a dream? " 

" And do you remember that ' the angel of 
the Lord ' appeared to Joseph, prophesying the 
birth of Jesus, and that ' the angel of the Lord ' 
came to him a second time, when the young 
Babe was in danger, and warned him to flee 
with the Child?" 



WHERE IS HEAVEN? 149 

Van Brunt hung his head, but his bosom 
heaved, and the veins in his forehead stood out. 

"Yes, I have read the story," he cried. 

"The fact is established, then," persisted the 
Master, " that God comes, that His Son, our 
Saviour, comes, and that the angels come. The 
principle, therefore, is conceded. It is too late 
to talk of the impossible. Facts are not to be 
denied. If they could come then, why not now ? 
Has God closed and bolted the doors of His 
house? If angels can come, why should our 
dear ones desert us? It is love for us that 
brings the Father; why shouldn't the same 
love bring those who have so lately crossed the 
river? The chain of reasoning is strong in 
every link, and the chain of evidence is unde- 
niable in every fact. 

" In very truth, the other world floods this 
world with its beauty, and the departed are 
nearer to us, very much nearer than we dare to 
think. As God is here, at this moment, so per- 
haps are they." 



150 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

I never saw a more impressive scene than 
that. Hiram sat gazing, gazing into the fire, 
but seeing more than he had words to describe, 
Jessig folded his hands, and his face was radiant. 
Van Brunt closed his eyes, leaned his head on 
the back of the chair, and heaved a long sigh, 
I thought, of relief. 

After a little, and without uttering a word 
of comment on the discussion, we put on our 
overcoats, shook hands, said good-night very 
quietly, and wended our way homeward. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

WAS IT A VISION? 

" FEBRUARY ioth. Have I been suddenly 
smitten with insanity? Is it possible that I 
have either lost all control of myself, or am on 
the verge of doing so? I have lived through 
this long, this glorious, this awfully portentous 
day, but that is all I can say. Part of the time 
I was up in the clouds, my heart bursting with 
a new-found joy and hope, and part of the time 
I was in the very bowels of the earth, in dark- 
ness and unmeasured agony of soul. What 
experiences I have gone through! Ecstasy 
alternating with despair! Now in the heaven 
of boundless bliss, and then falling ' from morn 
to noon, from noon to dewy eve.' The strain 
on me has been something terrible. 

" The more I think of that strange experi- 
151 



I 5 2 THE Y ME T IN HE A VEN. 

ence, the less I understand it. But what an 
exhausted and at the same time exhilarated 
condition I have been in I In all my life there 
is no day that equals this one. My hope that 
what I have seen has some significance — ah 
me! if I could only believe that — 

' ' Then whatever sky's above me, 
Here's a heart for any fate.' 

" But then comes my fear that a skillful phy- 
sician would say it was simply the result of 
natural causes, of over-cerebration, or some- 
thing of that sort — that it was all an hallucina- 
tion, an illusion, and has no meaning whatever. 
That is a very depressing thought, and yet it 
is better to be depressed than deceived. The 
most horrid truth must be preferred to a false- 
hood, though it has the gorgeous coloring of a 
rainbow. Heigho! I don't know where I am, 
nor what I am, and can't seem to find out. It 
is all so mysterious, and perhaps — that's what 
hurts me — so misleading. 



WAS IT A VISION? 



153 



" If I could trust that experience, if I could 
only trust it, I would go down on my knees and 
thank God for everything — yes, even for those 
two mounds in the churchyard where Clara and 
little Gooby lie. Where the wife and child lie? 
Do they really lie in that churchyard? I feared 
so until just now ; but for two hours last night 
I was sure that they were both in heaven, and 
I longed for death, that I might rejoin them. 
Heaven ! Is there such a place ? Are they 
there? Shall I go there, or can I go there? 
What a thought ! God help me, but I am per- 
ishing in this sea of wonder and doubt. 

" It was utterly impossible to hold my secret. 
I am generally reticent, have no confidential 
friends, always keep my private affairs under 
lock and key ; but in this instance I was forced 
to seek an interpreter. The difference between 
blazing noon and a starless midnight — and I 
didn't know what was to be my lot — drove me, 
as though some unseen being were lashing 
me — drove me, in spite of myself, to tell it all 



154 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

to some one. But to whom? That was the 
question. 

" Not able to make up my mind, I hastily- 
put on my overcoat, and rushed into the street. 
The words, ' The right man will appear at the 
right time,' rang in my ears, and under the im- 
pulse of the moment I hurried along. No one 
in sight ! Positively no one, not even a farmer, 
or a store-keeper, or a mill hand! 'Ah ha!' 
I cried, ' I am the victim of invisible demons. 
They have been playing a practical joke on 
me, and this is the way it turns out. I am a 
fool, a driveling idiot, yearning for the impos- 
sible, stretching my hand out with the hope 
of catching the sun or the moon or the stars.' 
But those words still rang in my ears, and they 
assumed a tone that was imperative even to 
harshness. ' The right man will appear at the 
right time ! ' ' Nonsense ! I will go home, take 
a dose of chloral to calm my nerves, and if I 
happen to take an overdose, so much the bet- 
ter. I can bear this torture no longer. Let 



WAS IT A VISION? 155 

the farce end, and let me come to my senses, 
and be a man again — a poor, miserable, 
wretched man, but still a man.' 

" So I turned on my heels abruptly, and 
there, directly in front of me, stood — the Mas- 
ter. I came near fainting on the spot. The 
blood all rushed into my heart, and I felt that 
my face was white as snow. Moreover, I 
trembled in every limb, for the right man had 
really appeared at just the right time. I think 
he divined my condition, knew that something 
unusual had occurred, for he quietly put his 
arm through mine, and as we walked along he 
said, ' Mr. Van Brunt, I have just called at your 
rooms, and was disappointed not to find you. 
You are not feeling quite well, and perhaps I 
may be of assistance.' Then he added, ' Or 
possibly you may prefer to be alone* Pray be 
frank.' 

"'Come with me,' I answered, huskily, for 
my words came with difficulty. ' Let us not 
talk here, but in my room I will tell you all.' 



156 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" Not a word did he speak from that moment, 
and I was grateful for his silence. But I was 
conscious of leaning on him, at times, very 
heavily, for the strength had all gone out of 
me. What a magnificent creature he is ! His 
large head, covered with white hair, his broad 
shoulders, his firm step, like that of a king. I 
had often admired them, but they then im- 
pressed me with a feeling akin to reverence. 
Not a word did he utter, and not a word did I 
utter. We simply walked side by side, shoul- 
der to shoulder — that man of steadfast faith 
and mild eye, and I, racked and torn, and dizzy 
as with vertigo. 

" When we reached my room, I locked the 
door — what for, I don't know — and pointed to 
a chair. He took off his coat with the delib- 
erate air of one who knows that he has some 
special work to do and is quite ready to do it. 
Then, sitting there by my window, through 
which the sun shone as though it were weaving a 
halo about his head, he waited for me to speak. 



WAS IT A VISION? 157 

" I told him all, and during the recital there 
were tears in my eyes, and a great ache in my 
heart. Yes, I told him every detail from the 
beginning to the end, and he opened not his 
mouth until I had finished. At one moment 
he looked grave even to severity, and I ex- 
pected him to chide me ; but the next moment 
there was something like a smile on his lips, as 
he nodded in assent to my statements. 

" When it was all over, I said, ' Master, was 
it a delusion, or was I dreaming? Is that ex- 
perience wholly without significance, a glorious 
bubble that has entranced me, but will burst at 
the first rude wind?' 

" Do you know what it is to hang, literally 
to hang, on a man's words? Do you know 
what I mean when I tell you that in the short 
interim between my questions and his answer a 
cold perspiration broke out all over me ? I felt 
as I imagine a soul must feel when at the Judg- 
ment it is awaiting the verdict which is to decide 
its eternal future. 



158 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" He took from his pocket a small Bible, and, 
turning over its leaves, came to this passage, 
which he read : 

" ' ''And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray 
Thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And 
the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; 
and he saw : and, behold, the mountain was 
full of horses and chariots of fire round about 
Elisha.'" 

" ' But, Master,' I cried, ' I am not a prophet, 
not even a humble servant of the Most High. 
I have rebelled against Him ; I have almost 
cursed Him for the afflictions which He has 
forced me to bear.' 

" His voice was gentle and pathetic as he 
answered, ' My dear brother, these are not the 
matters we are considering just now. Let us 
deal simply with facts. The mountain was filled 
with invisible beings, and when the Lord saw 
fit, the young man's eyes were opened, and he 
saw for a little time what Elisha had seen all 
the time. It is the fact that these beings were 



WAS IT A VISION? 159 

there, and that it was possible under certain cir- 
cumstances to catch a glimpse of them, that we 
have to do with.' 

" He then turned to the New Testament, and 
read the story of Christ's temptation, ending 
with the declaration that ' angels came and min- 
istered unto Him.' 

" ' The ministry of angels,' he said, ( is a con- 
spicuous part of the revelation of God. There 
is, we are told, "a cloud of witnesses" who 
keep guard over us, and when Christ rebuked 
Peter for using violence, He said, " Thinkest 
thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and 
He shall presently give Me more than twelve 
legions of angels? " 

" ' Our dear ones are all there,' he continued, 
' fathers and mothers, wives and children, all 
there,' — I thought his voice trembled, and won- 
dered if he too had suffered as I was suffering 
— ' and all here. There are times when they 
make themselves known to us, and such an 
experience as that which you have just passed 



l6o THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

through should be regarded as a sacred privi- 
lege, for which no amount of gratitude can be 
too great.' 

" ' Do you mean,' I asked, 'do you really 
mean that there is a single ray of hope for me 
in what occurred? Was it a vision in reality, 
and had it any relation whatever to my dear 
ones? O Master, if you can assure me of that, 
my lips shall never murmur again, and my heart 
will be filled with unspeakable happiness.' I 
was so utterly overcome that I buried my face 
in my hands. 

" ' Christianity,' he answered, 'is communion 
with God and Christ. That is the essence of 
religion. " I will give My angels charge con- 
cerning thee, lest thou dash thy foot against 
a stone." Do you need this help, my brother? 
Are you willing to accept it at the hands of the 
dear Saviour? Will you take Him to be your 
Guide, your personal Friend, your daily Compan- 
ion? Then why should He not keep His prom- 
ises, why not give you in a vision a sight of those 



WAS IT A VISION? 161 

loved ones, who have never ceased to think of 
and to love you, and who are looking forward 
to the time when in an eternal Home you and 
they will be together again? Your child would 
lead you to the Father; your wife would com- 
fort and console you. She bids you bear your 
grief as Jesus bore His. The heavens have 
opened to you, and you have seen the glory of 
the Redeemer. You are no longer an alien and 
a stranger, for God Himself sent you last night, 
by these dear messengers, an invitation to put 
on the wedding-garment and get ready for the 
marriage-feast of the Lamb.' 

" Before I go further, let me tell you the 
story that I told the Master. 

" Not knowing what else to do, tired of my- 
self and of my surroundings, I hired a team of 
John Benson, who has three horses to rent at the 
other end of the village, and took a long drive. 
Even in this cold weather, when the air seems 
full of snowflakes, the landscape is very beauti- 
ful. Somber, to be sure, made so by frozen 



1 62 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

fields, trees stripped of their leaves, bleak winds, 
clouds of leaden hue, and shadows which the 
high hills cast over the valley ; but all these 
things rather fitted my mood. I jogged along 
leisurely, letting the horse walk or trot as he 
preferred — and most of the time he had a de- 
cided preference for walking — and although I 
didn't exactly enjoy myself, I was at least less 
miserable than is usual with me. 

" When I passed Johnson's farmhouse, a 
flock of pigeons — there must have been nearly 
a hundred of them, for Johnson is something of 
a crank in that direction — rose from the roof 
of his barn, and seemed to be having a grand 
good time in the air. What freedom of motion ! 
Think of poising in mid-heaven, looking dis- 
dainfully down on all the trivial things below, 
and then with a sweep of the wings careering 
through space ! There is magic in it, and I 
envied the birds. 

" Farther on I heard the twitter of a thrush, 
and thought I saw a nest on the upper bough 



WAS IT A VISION? 163 

of a tall white birch. The little fellow had a 
merry note, and I reined in my horse to listen. 
It came again and again, and although I was 
glad to know that anything was happy, I was 
at the same time almost indignant that it could 
be so. I envied the bird, but thought him 
foolish to pretend to be happy when the cold 
winter was all around him. Then the wind 
came soughing through the pines, and it was 
as mournful as the tones of a huge aeolian harp. 
That was too much for me, and I brousrht the 
whip down on the horse's back in a way that 
surprised him into a sharp trot. He got over 
his wonder in a few minutes, however, and re- 
sumed his dismal walk. He was just the horse 
to hire if you don't care whether you go four 
miles an hour or spend four hours on a mile. I 
suppose the Lord didn't put any ' go ' into him, 
and so the poor creature is not to be blamed. 

" It was eight o'clock and ten minutes when 
I went to my room. I am sure of this, because 
Jessig was on his way to Hiram's cottage, and, 



1 64 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

thinking he was late, asked me for the time. I 
am very particular about it, because I want you 
to understand the case in all its bearings. 

" There was no moon, but it was bright star- 
light, and I sat at the window for half an hour 
watching the particular stars with which I am 
familiar. There was Capella far away to the 
eastward, the Pleiades nearly overhead, and the 
pretty Dolphin well to the west, with the big 
square of Pegasus intrusively conspicuous. It 
is rather pleasant to look up at the sky night 
after night and recognize old acquaintances, 
and, as the seasons change, to watch one group 
drop below the horizon, while another lifts itself 
into view. 

" I think I must have grown sleepy, but yet 
was not inclined to retire, for I was seated in 
my easy-chair — it is all upholstery, and fits into 
the angular surfaces of the body in a very ad- 
mirable way — and that is the last I remember. 
Yes, I was certainly asleep. There can be no 
doubt whatever on that subject. 



WAS IT A VISION? 165 

" I was wakened after a while, but the pro- 
cess of awakening was very gradual. I heard 
dimly the village church-bell strike, but was too 
drowsy to count the strokes. After a little, I 
became aware of a light in the room, and look- 
ing about — can you believe it? — found my- 
self in the old library in my city home. In that 
library we had sat, she and he and I, he on my 
knee, or in his mother's lap, or playing with his 
toys on the floor. This did not startle me in 
the least, for all remembrance of Woodbine was 
obliterated, and it was as though I had never 
left that home, so happy once, so lonely now. 

" I not only saw a light, but felt a presence, 
though I was sure no one had entered, or, for 
that matter, could have done so, since the door 
was securely locked. Still, some one besides 
myself was certainly in that room. The light 
that filled it was as delicate as a faint perfume. 
It was the merest shadow of a light, a sort of 
phantom light, like that made by what is called 
a fairy lamp in a sick-room. The darkness was 



166 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

gone, and I could see every article of furni- 
ture, even the figures in the rug, and yet the 
light was not light, but radiance, soft and mel- 
low and strange. 

" A light! And yet there was no fire in the 
grate, the gas was not burning, the street-lamps 
could cast no reflection of that kind, and the 
moon had not risen. Why I did not become 
excited I cannot say, but I did not. Like one 
under the influence of some potent drug, which 
steals away his power of motion but leaves his 
intellect bright and clear, I sat and mused, as 
entirely quiescent as though it were an every- 
day occurrence. 

" A little later on, I was roused by a child's 
voice. I say roused, but it was more than that ; 
I was startled. I felt my face flush and the 
blood pour through my veins like a torrent 
which has burst the flood-gates that confined 
it. A child's voice ! Yes, but that was not 
all. I distinctly recognized it as the voice of 



WAS IT A VISION? 167 

my little Gooby. Turning around to the spot 
whence it seemed to come, a sight greeted me 
which no pen can fitly describe. My temples 
throb as I recall it, and I gasp for breath. 
There, within ten feet of me, on the rug in front 
of the fireplace, stood my boy, my soul's desire, 
my own dear Gooby. I instinctively made an 
effort to rush to him and fold him to my heart, 
but a thousand, yes, a million most attenuated 
threads held me to the chair, and, struggle as I 
would, I could not move. Round about him, 
apparently radiating from him, was the light I 
had noticed, and which filled the room. His 
face, oh, how beautiful it was! My boy, and 
yet not mine. The same as in the olden time, 
and yet not quite the same. It was Gooby, 
but the angel, not the mortal, Gooby. 

"I can't tell you — for, though I have 
wrenched my memory in the task of recalling 
that part of the incident, I have as yet been 
unsuccessful — I can't tell you whether he really 



1 68 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

talked with me and I really answered him, or 
whether it was a silent transmission of his 
thought to my mind and of my thought to his. 
For the time being it seemed as though I heard 
his voice, and spoke in return with mine. 

"'Papa!' Was it a whisper? It filled the 
room, and yet I remember thinking that no one 
could have heard it but myself. 

"'Papa!' A second time I made an effort 
to rise, but could not do it. 

" Then with his little hand he pointed to the 
left. Nothing there ! No, nothing. But see ! 
While I looked, a new vision broke upon me. 
A brighter light shone around, but misty, as 
when seen through many folds of a white veil, 
and in its midst — poor heart, why did you not 
burst ? — stood Clara, my wife, the mother of 
my boy! The gushing tears ran down my 
cheeks as I held out my trembling hands, im- 
ploring her to come nearer, for I could not stir. 
I was held back by an unseen but powerful 
agency. 



WAS IT A VISION? 169 

" s Would you have us return ? ' 

" Whence came those words ? From her 
lips? But her lips did not move. And yet I 
heard the words as plainly as though spoken in 
my ear. 

" I could not answer, for a struggle was go- 
ing on in my soul which drove me to destruc- 
tion. Would I, if I could, have them back? 
What! Call those white- robed angels from a 
home wherein they lived the eternal life in the 
dear companionship of the redeemed, in com- 
munion with Him who said, ' I will be with you 
alway, even to the end of the world ' ? Call 
them back to this dingy earthly home, which, 
though it seemed so beautiful before, now 
seemed so unworthy of their occupancy ? 

" The conflict was over at last. My selfish 
sorrow for their loss was forced to retreat. My 
grief for my own affliction was swallowed up in 
my gratitude that they were beyond the reach 
of tears and sighs. ' I have been all wrong,' I 
said to my heart, l wrong, a thousand times 



170 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

wrong. I have thought of my own loneliness, 
but not of their happiness. It has been noth- 
ing but self, self, self.' 

" All this while Clara was looking intently at 
me, as though seeking an answer to the ques- 
tion, and all this while the air was vibrating 
with the words, ' Would you have us return ? ' 

" I could bear the ordeal no longer. My 
better nature won the victory, and I cried out, 
though there was agony in my voice, ' No, dear 
ones. God's will, not mine, be done!' 

" Then Clara smiled, and an ineffable sense 
of happiness filled my soul. 

" But soon the mother and the child, casting 
on me looks of love, held their hands out as 
though inviting me to come with them, and 
then slowly, slowly faded from my view, leav- 
ing only a sigh behind. 

" As the last glimpse of them was lost I 
woke. 

" What would you think if that had happened 
to you ? If it is a mere delusion, it is more 



WAS IT A VISION? 171 

cruel than the point of a spear; but if it is a 
symbol of the truth, I can whistle all my doubts 
down the wind, and face whatever comes, with 
sweet anticipation of meeting them on the shore 
of immortality. 

"Do you wonder that I am excited? Give 
me, then, O world, give me your prayers and 
your pity, that I may find the clue, and come 
safely out of my darkness into the sunshine of 
this glorious faith." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 

We held our last meeting on the evening of 
February 29th. On the 20th the Master had 
gone back to the city, quite recovered in 
health, but he returned for this occasion, which 
was in celebration of Hiram Golf's birthday. 
"Sixty-three," said Hiram, cheerily, "and al- 
most within hailin' distance of the other shore." 
His words were prophetic, for twelve months 
later he arrived in heaven. 

I ought to say that I had formed a close 
friendship with Peter Van Brunt, and have 
never seen so marvelous a change in any man 
as that which took place in him. Not in his 
physical condition, for that was very far beyond 
hope when he first came to Woodbine, and had 
steadily and slowly grown worse. His mal- 
172 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 173 

ady walked about on slippered feet, and with 
that portentous cunning which is the strategy 
of a fatal disease had stolen noiselessly nearer 
and nearer to the source of life. But he had 
grown light-hearted, or almost so, and the smile 
which I frequently noticed on his lips was that 
of a soul waiting serenely and patiently for its 
release. 

His words were buoyant and cheery, like 
those of one who anticipates a pleasure but 
does not feel quite at liberty to speak of it. 
More than once, as I looked in his pale face, I 
recalled the words of Buffon : " Death is not so 
terrible a thing as we imagine it to be. It is a 
specter that frightens us at a distance, and dis- 
appears as we approach it." I could see that 
with Van Brunt the dread had been overcome, 
and he was looking forward with something like 
eagerness to that dark threshold over which he 
would step into the embrace of wife and child. 

Our talk at this meeting was rather desultory. 
We chatted on a large variety of topics, and 



I 74 THEY MET IN HE A VEN. 

roamed at will over the whole territory of the 
religious life. 

" A prayer," began Hiram, " is a very cur'us 
thing. It is either good for everythin', or it 
ain't good for nothin'. There is a good deal of 
prayin' that ain't wuth the time it takes to do it, 
for the reason that there ain't no meanin' to it. 
If my boy was to talk to me as some folks talk 
to God, I should feel ashamed of him, and of 
myself. If a man prays as a privilege, he'll get 
good out of it ; if he prays as a duty, and 
becos he's afraid not to, he insults his own 
religious natur'. When I was young, I darsn't 
go to bed without sayin' my prayers, for fear 
the bogies would carry me off ; so I rattled the 
prayer off just as quick as I could, and then 
slipped between the sheets, with the feelin' that 
God couldn't make no complaint. I take it 
that there's lots of prayers that ain't got liftin' 
power enough to take 'em up to the throne ; 
and God don't pay no attention to a prayer 
unless the man that makes it is in earnest 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 175 

about it. What I believe in isn't the night- 
time prayer, partic'larly, nor the mornin' prayer, 
specially, but the all-day prayer." 

" The thought that you always have a Friend 
within reach," added the Master, " is a solace 
and comfort. To realize that fact, and to con- 
duct your life in accordance with it, is to attain 
the ideal life. Talking to God at a distance, 
and doubting whether He hears, or, if He hears, 
whether He will care enough to answer, is of 
very little spiritual value ; but talking to Him 
as we would to a very wise man whose opinion 
is to decide our course of action, that is helpful 
and inspiring." 

" Dear Master," said Van Brunt, " it would 
be interesting to know how often you pray, and 
for what things you pray, and especially, per- 
haps, for what things you do not think it well 
to pray. I beg you to believe that I am not 
simply curious, but seeking instruction." 

" ' Pray without ceasing ' is the Apostle's in- 
junction," broke in Jessig. 



176 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" But one cannot spend all his time in 
prayer," I suggested. 

" Not all his time," answered the Master, 
" in uttering the words of prayer — the Apostle 
had no such meaning in his mind — but all his 
time in the spiritual attitude of prayer. Take 
counsel of God in every new endeavor, of 
whatever nature, whether it involve business 
or pleasure. Whatever a man feels it right and 
proper to do, on that he should reverently ask 
a blessing. And he certainly would, if he had 
a correct idea of his relations to the Most High. 
It is a grave mistake to suppose that the Father 
is only interested in your spiritual development. 
He put us here to do a certain amount of 
worldly work, and to do it according to our 
best judgment. That work is closely related 
to human progress, whether it is making shoes, 
or preaching sermons, or running a woolen mill. 
And we are taught that over all these things 
there is a watchful providence, which means 
that God wants them done in His way, and 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 177 

not after the methods of avarice and selfishness. 
We are bound, therefore, to consult Him, for, 
after all, it is His world, and not ours. It is 
not necessary to put your prayer into a set form 
of speech, or to assume any particular physical 
attitude, for the heart can pray though the lips 
be silent, and God understands the unspoken 
as well as the uttered wish." 

" I see, I see it all," chimed in Hiram, in 
cheery tones. " Supposin' a king should send 
for me and say, ' Hiram, there's a little job out 
there in that corner of my kingdom, and you 
are just the man to do it. It's not for your 
benefit partic'larly, but for the benefit of every 
one in that section. Now understand, Hiram, 
it isn't an easy job, but rather a tough one, and 
you'll get perplexed a good many times. Here ' 
— and he hands me a document — ' here are 
the general principles on which I want it done ; 
but when you get mystified, don't hesitate to 
drop me a line statin' the difficulty, and I'll an- 
swer by return mail.' So I go out there, and 



178 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

begin work. But soon I find that what the king 
called ' general principles ' don't give me the 
light I need. Whenever I get stuck, I say to 
myself, ' I don't know about that, Hiram ; you'd 
better write and get some advice.' And every 
day as I'm doin' that work, I say, ' I wonder 
how the king will like that? ' or, ' I guess he'll 
be pleased when he sees what I've done to- 
day,' or, 'Well, now, I've got to confess that I 
made a blunder, and I'll just write and tell him 
so, and ask him to excuse it.' Now I should 
call that sort of thing prayin' without ceasin'. 
It's droppin' a line to heaven to tell the Lord 
how things is gettin' on." 

" Master," said Jessig, " if the club will ex- 
cuse me for changing the subject, I should like 
to relate an experience I had yesterday after- 
noon, and ask your opinion as to the reflec- 
tions which afterward forced themselves on my 
mind." 

We nodded our approval, and he went on : 
" 1 went to see Nancy Hobbs, who has just 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 



179 



passed her ninety-fourth year. The poor crea- 
ture is in the last stages of physical feebleness. 
The whole machinery seems to be working with 
hesitation, and an evident feeling that its legiti- 
mate work was long since done. But her mind 
stands out from the wreck of matter like a star 
hovering over a ruin. It has apparently lost 
nothing of its old clearness, for she has been a 
remarkable woman. She is partly blind and 
partly deaf, and lingers, lingers on the thresh- 
old, waiting for the summons to take the next 
step. ' If the Lord were only willing ! ' she said 
to me, while the tears trickled down her fur- 
rowed cheeks. When I came away, I thought 
that after a certain period life is wholly un- 
desirable, and that, in our human judgment, it 
is better to go than stay. What think you?" 

" It is sometimes a privilege to die," answered, 
the Master, in mellow tones, " and it is some- 
times a duty to live. If there is no more to 
be done, we should be ready to go. An aged 
person, or a person suffering from an incurable 



l8o THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

disease, however, may have a very important 
ministry. Such a one cannot go until the op- 
portunity to do the prescribed work is either 
used or fatally neglected. I knew a mother 
who was bedridden for a score of years, and no 
one could tell why she didn't die, neither the 
physician nor she herself. But it was impossi- 
ble. She longed for the release which did not 
come. But while on' her bed she drew her two 
boys to Christ, and within a week from the 
time when they knelt at her side and prayed, 
she closed her eyes and went to heaven. 

" We must serve God in the way He sees fit, 
and not in the way we deem most desirable. 
One may seem to be long over-due in heaven, 
if we count by years ; but yet the hour does 
not strike because the plan of Providence has 
not been carried out. 

" It is an affliction to stay after one's powers 
are worn out, but, like other afflictions, it is to 
be borne with resignation. It is a great grief 
to have your loved ones go, but an equal grief, 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. i8l 

under certain circumstances, not to be able to 
go yourself." 

" This clutching at life is abnormal, and in- 
dicates a diseased state of mind," I ventured 
to suggest. " Men overestimate the value of 
life by the failure to recognize the possibilities 
of the future. They refuse to believe that this 
life is not all, that if they have anything worth 
taking into the other world they will be heartily 
welcomed there and enjoy an environment 
which is far beyond the reach of their present 
power of conception." 

"True, true," broke in Hiram. "I have 
known a man to live ten year just becos he was 
afraid to die. It is like a poor tramp that come 
by my shop one muddy day. His shoes was 
about gone — down at the heel, great slits in 
the sides of 'em, and the soles was worn clean 
through in two places. I told Marthy to hunt 
up a pair of mine ; and when she brought 'em, 
I said to him, ' Now throw them old ones over 
the fence, and put on this nice pair.' And do 



1 82 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

you know, he didn't believe me — thought I 
was jokin', or was goin' to cheat him, and it's 
a positive fact he trudged off through the slush 
with his wet feet. So God says, ' Let that old 
body go, and I'll give you one that'll fit your 
soul as though 'twas made for it,' but we don't 
believe it, and keep the old worn-out body 
until it drops to pieces and we have to move 
out." 

" There is an old Arabic legend of the 
prophet Enoch," said Jessig, " which seems 
to be pertinent to this discussion. 

" After the prophet had spent many years 
in prayer, the Angel of Death came to him, 
saying that he wished to make a compact of 
friendship. He added that Enoch might prefer 
any request, and it would be granted. 

" The first petition was that the angel would 
take his soul. He was perhaps wearied with 
too much living amid limitations, and, being 
sure of another life, naturally longed for it. 
The angel, however, declared that it was im- 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 183 

possible to grant such an unusual request until 
God should see fit to give the order, and that 
the order would not be given until the ap- 
pointed work had been accomplished. 

" After some time, Enoch asked the angel to 
permit him to go to paradise. Azrael replied 
that this was a difficult wish to gratify, and 
that the special consent of the All-Merciful 
was necessary. The consent seems, however, 
to have been given after some delay, and Enoch 
presented himself at the gate. The keeper at 
first refused peremptorily to allow him to enter, 
but the order was not to be disobeyed. With 
a good deal of reluctance, and not without 
wonder that a mortal who had not yet tasted of 
death should be granted so great a privilege, 
he unbarred the gate, but gave Enoch this 
warning : ' Go in, and behold paradise ; but be 
speedy and leave it again, for thou mayest not 
dwell there till after the resurrection.' 

" Enoch entered, but was in no haste to 
leave. Indeed, after he had been there for 



1 84 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

some hours he felt it impossible to tear himself 
away. The thought of going back to the se- 
vere and irksome tasks of other days was very 
repugnant, and he determined that nothing 
should make him consent to depart. When 
urged to go, he replied, ' I am come to para- 
dise, and this is my home ; God has promised 
it to me, and now that I have entered I will 
leave it no more.' 

<( The dispute between the gate-keeper and 
Enoch waxed hot, so the legend says ; but 
Enoch appealed to God not to send him back 
again to the lower world after having permitted 
him to see the glories of heaven, and the All- 
Merciful granted that petition also, and the 
prophet has dwelt in paradise ever since." 

" I have entire sympathy with Enoch," re- 
marked the Master. " It would have been 
almost cruel, nothing less than a punishment, 
to send him back. The world is full of beauty, 
with its blue skies and floating clouds, its sing- 
ing rivers and surging ocean, and one stands 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 185 

in the presence of created things with speech- 
less amazement ; but — I say it reverently — 
the Almighty did not reach the limit of pos- 
sibility in such a place as this. The poorest 
room in the king's palace may astonish us, but 
it is not to be compared to the grand salon in 
which he receives his guests. Your story is 
very significant, for it means that God must 
not let us view heaven too plainly if we are to 
remain contentedly on the earth. We see its 
glories dimly, therefore, and through the thinly 
woven veil of our doubts, or our misgivings, or 
our instinctive shrinking from change, and so 
plod on, sometimes cheerily and sometimes 
wearily, like the traveler in a dark night, who 
doesn't know that at the very next turn in the 
road he will suddenly see the illuminated Home 
that he has been taught is his destination." 

" There is another matter which we have 
only mentioned casually during the winter," 
said Van Brunt, " namely, what is called the 
miraculous portion of Christianity — those stu- 



1 86 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

pendous acts of Christ which have startled 
every new generation of readers. Until lately 
I have regarded them as a romantic element 
interwoven with the general story — a sort of 
literary tribute paid to the exceptional career 
and teaching of the Nazarene. I think a great 
many people mentally halt at the recital of each 
one of them, but, finding it so desirable to ac- 
cept the rest, pass them lightly by." 

"It is dangerous," replied the Master, " to 
limit the possible, especially when you are deal- 
ing with the works of God. The word ' mira- 
cle ' has been the bugbear of men who only 
think that they think ; but an hour's investiga- 
tion shows that everything is a miracle — the 
creation of the universe, the act of setting the 
stars and the systems of stars in their places 
and tracing in infinite space the circuits they 
are to describe, the planting of a seed, with the 
command to transmute itself into a rose-bush. 
The man who for the first time should see a 
seed pass through the different stages of evolu- 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 187 

tion, till the bud spread its petals and became a 
perfect flower, would not be more astonished 
than the Hebrews were when they saw Lazarus 
come out of his tomb. Miracle is simply the 
natural action of a law with which we are unac- 
quainted. It is possible and proper either to 
say that everything is miracle or that nothing 
is miracle." 

" I've thought on that subject a good deal," 
remarked Hiram, " but it don't trouble me no 
more. I say to myself, ' If you can find such 
a bein' as Christ, you would naterally expect 
Him to do just such things as is told of Him.' ' 

"Yes," said I, "the man who lives in the 
first story of the house and does things in his 
first-story way would be surprised if the man 
who lives on the second story, and who has a 
wider range of knowledge, should go down to 
the first story and do what he does as a matter 
of course upstairs. And if the man on the 
third story should come down two flights, and 
do what is usual with him when on the higher 



1 88 THEY MET TV HEAVEN. 

level, the tenant on the first floor would think 
it all miraculous. When Christ came from 
heaven, He acted in accordance with the higher 
laws to which He had been accustomed. The 
angels who looked down on what was done in 
Judea were not at all astonished, neither would 
they speak of those wonderful acts as miracles ; 
but to the men who saw them done, to the men 
who were living on a lower plane, they were 
simply astounding. If I read the Scriptures 
aright, Christ, who worked the miracles, was 
the only one who did not regard them as mira- 
cles. Perhaps, however, I am overstating the 
facts." 

" Not at all," broke in Jessig. " On the con- 
trary, your statement of the case is fair and im- 
partial. I have sometimes thought that Jesus 
was Himself surprised that His audience should 
regard His works as miraculous in our sense of 
the word. I think I detect something of this 
astonishment in that remarkable passage, ' Ver- 
ily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 189 

Me, the works that I do shall he do also, and 
greater works than these shall he do, because I 
go to My Father.' " 

" And why," broke in Van Brunt, " why 
'because I go to My Father'?" 

" I don't wish to seem intrusive in giving my 
interpretation," answered Jessig, "but I think the 
words are among the most magical in the New 
Testament. What can they mean except that 
if Christ had been permitted to remain longer 
on the earth even these wonderful works would 
seem like the rudimentary elements of His pos- 
sibilities ? He could do other works far greater, 
but the Father called Him, and He had no 
time. But if one believes in Him — that is, if 
one has the Christ spirit — that man will some 
time do these ' greater works ' which Christ 
would have done Himself if His ministry had 
extended over thirty years instead of three." 

" You have opened the door for very wide 
discussion," said the Master, " and I wish we 
could meet as a club many times more, that 



190 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

we might reverently explore it. The time will 
come — I know not when, I only know that 
God is patient — the time will come when a 
regenerated race will cease to question the 
miracles, because their repetition will become 
a part of human history. ' According to thy 
faith be it done unto thee,' He said, and the 
sick man was suddenly restored. We have 
here not a contradiction of law, but something 
that is above law as we know it. The principle 
announced holds good, and will always do so. 
It is a man's faith that makes him whole, and 
the word ' whole,' you know, means hale, or 
healthy. That being so, there shall be perfect 
wholeness where there is perfect faith. Sick- 
ness will be dissipated, and the physical charac- 
ter of life changed, when we come to be at one 
with God. Those prophesied days are not for 
you or me, but we shall look down from the 
battlements on a world redeemed, and there- 
fore a world that is whole, or hale, in body, 
mind, and soul." 



THE CLUB ADJOURNS. 191 

" I know it is late," cried Hiram, in some 
excitement, " but I couldn't get a wink to- 
night if I didn't shout Amen! I've read that 
piece of Scripter a hunderd times, and every 
time I said to myself, ' Hiram, the meanin' is 
as plain as your lapstone.' But I never said it 
even to my Marthy, becos it seemed so like a 
wonderful dream, and she would sartinly tell 
me I was in my second childhood. But just 
think of it! Believin' in Christ, and bein' 
whole! Ain't that it, parson?" 

Jessig nodded, and Hiram, who was glowing 
with fervor, went on : 

" All Christ's, and all healthy. No rheuma- 
tis, no disease of no kind ! And not becos we've 
found a herb or a drug for every ill, but becos 
we have knelt on the ground as the Christ 
passed by, and touched the hem of His gar- 
ment! " 

Just then dear Mrs. Jessig appeared, with a 
smile on her face, bearing the coffee-urn. We 
sipped the delicious beverage for a while, chatted 



192 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

about our personal prospects, expressed the fer- 
vent hope that we might meet again, and then 
shook hands like old friends, and went out into 
the bright starlight with hearts full of good 
cheer. 

The Fireside Club had adjourned sine die. 



CHAPTER X. 

HEAVEN AT HAND. 

"MARCH 16th. Here I am in the old city 
home once more. Home ! No, it can never 
again be that for me, since it is not that for 
them. While they were here it was indeed 
the happiest place on earth ; but where they 
are is my real home. I recall a fragment of 
an old Persian poem of the thirteenth century : 

" ' Tell me, gentle traveler, thou 

Who hast wandered far and wide, 

Seen the sweetest roses blow 
And the brightest rivers glide — 

Say, of all thine eyes have seen, 

Which the fairest land has been?' 

" How often have I quoted these lines to 
Clara, and how often have her eyes half filled 
with tears as I repeated the poet's answer : 
193 



194 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

" ' Lady, shall I tell thee where 

Nature seems most blessed and fair, 

Far above all climes beside? 

'Tis where those we love abide ; 

And that little spot is best 

Which the loved one's foot hath pressed.' 

" Yes, I am back again, but what a different 
'I' I am. I can't recognize my face, or my 
thoughts, or my feelings. I looked into the 
mirror to-day — the mirror that stands in her 
room, in our room — and was struck by the 
wonderful and happy change that has come over 
me. Indeed, there seemed to be two faces re- 
flected there, one in the background, projected 
by my imagination, and one in the foreground. 
The former was of myself as I was when I went 
to Woodbine last October, the other was of my 
present self. The face in the background was 
haggard, with black lines under the eyes, the 
forehead deeply furrowed by the terrible ex- 
periences through which I have passed, and 
the expression — ah me! I shuddered as I 
beheld it, it was so stern, so hard, so defiant. 



HEAVEN AT HAND. 195 

The face in the foreground was that of a man 
who has suddenly fallen upon a fortune and 
begun to enjoy it. It was a happy face, and 
— I can confess it to these pages — a resigned 
face. 

" Isn't it strange that an idea can work such 
a metamorphosis? That is all that has oc- 
curred — a change in my way of looking at 
things. In October I looked, but saw nothing! 
Now, in March, I look, and see more than I can 
speak of. That is all the difference. All ? It 
is infinite. Midnight has become midday, de- 
spair has become faith, the lead of fear has 
been transmuted into the gold of hope. I am 
another man — not the Van Brunt who buried 
his dear ones in the grave, but the Van Brunt 
whose dear ones are beckoning him to join 
them in heaven. 

" March 20th. I used to dread to stay in 
this old house, because every room, every pict- 
ure, every piece of furniture, even the ringing 
of the door-bell, reminded me of them, and 



196 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

that memory was prolonged agony. Now I 
like the place, and for the very reason which 
before made me hate it. I don't think I am 
superstitious, and yet I feel their presence con- 
stantly. It seems as though they were not far 
away. When I am downstairs they are per- 
haps upstairs, and when I am upstairs they are 
perhaps downstairs. I feel that if I should call 
they might answer me. I was two hours in 
our sitting-room this afternoon, in the same 
easy-chair I used so many years. How still it 
was, the silence only broken by the measured 
ticking of the old Dutch clock in the hallway. 
Right opposite me was the demi-sofa on which 
Clara sat while I read to her evening after 
evening. And I was happy there, placidly 
happy, perfectly quiescent, as though some one 
had said, ' Wait a bit, and you shall see her ! ' 
The old restlessness is gone forever. 

" At one moment, however, I came near 
breaking down. Looking about the room, my 
eyes fell on something under the piano. I 



HEAVEN AT HAND. 197 

rather wonder it has never been taken away. 
Perhaps the aged housekeeper, who is a dear 
soul, let it stay there for old times' sake. It 
was the little two-wheeled cart, one of the 
belongings of Gooby. He used to trundle it 
about the room, chuckling to himself the while. 
I couldn't help the shiver that went through 
me. Those blessed days came back with a rush 
like the waters of a river when the dam breaks, 
and I lost control of myself. But after a little 
the pain was gone, and I grew calm again. 
' What is he doing now ? ' I asked. ' Is he as 
joyous in the heavenly as he was in the earthly 
childhood ? ' And the sunshine stealing through 
the window seemed to answer, 'Yes.' 

" March 25th. Dr. Franklin came to-day for 
the first time. He was called to Washington 
soon after my return, and only got back yester- 
day. One of the Cabinet had a severe attack 
of pneumonia, and as Franklin is an expert 
in the disease, he was naturally summoned. I 
don't think any man was ever more surprised 



198 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

than he when he saw how cheerful I was. He 
examined me with great care, and all the while 
I noticed the puzzled look on his face. I think 
he was trying to find somewhere in my system 
the cause for my good spirits. For full five 
minutes he maintained a stubborn silence, like 
a man who is trying to solve an enigma, and 
then he said, casually : 

" ' Van Brunt, it was lucky I sent you to 
Woodbine.' 

" ' Very,' I replied, heartily. 

" What more to say, or how to continue the 
conversation, he didn't know. 

" ' It was the best prescription you ever 
wrote,' I said. 

" ' H'm ! Yes? ' he answered, as though ex- 
pecting some revelation, but what it could be 
was beyond his ken. 

" ' The medicine? ' he began. 

" ( Did me no good,' I replied. 

" ' The air? ' he asked. 

" ' It was fresh and pure,' I answered, ' but 



HEAVEN AT HAND. 199 

it came too late. I am no better, but gradually 
growing worse.' 

" He saw that I was under no illusion, and 
that puzzled him still more. Indeed, he sat 
and simply stared at me. 

" I found something in Woodbine, doctor,' 
I said. 

" ' Ah ! ' and he lifted his eyebrows. 

" ' Yes, something that has made a new man 
of me,' I went on, 

" ' May I ask what it is, Van ? ' 

" ' A Saviour! ' was my reply. 

" Franklin is a materialist. He has dissected 
many bodies in the hope of finding a soul, and 
been so unsuccessful that he can't believe there 
is one. There may have been a sneer in his 
heart at my words, for aught I know, but he 
was too courteous to let me see it. He merely 
sank back in his chair and gazed at me in 
wonder. 

" ' Yes,' I said, ' I found a Saviour there, and, 
as you see, I am facing the inevitable without 



200 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

a fear. I am happy, doctor — more happy 
than I can tell you.' 

" So I talked with him for half an hour. He 
listened respectfully, seemed interested in parts 
of my recital, and when I had finished heaved 
a sigh, but what it meant I cannot say. 

" ' To lean on a strong arm at such a time as 
this,' I said, ' is a great privilege. To have that 
in one's heart which can make him bear his 
burden cheerfully may well excite one's grati- 
tude.' 

" ' True, Van Brunt,' he answered, with con- 
siderable feeling. ' We doctors are not apt to 
be religious men, but if religion has effected 
this change in you, my dear boy, I wish there 
were more of it in the world.' 

" As he was about leaving, I said, ' Doctor, I 
am much more feeble than when I saw you last' 

" He nodded. 

" ' I should like to have you tell me plainly,' 
I went on, ' when I may expect to — ' 

" ' Oh,' he answered, evasively, 'length of life 



HEAVEN AT HAND. 20I 

is the unknown quantity. Everything is un- 
certain.' 

" ' Not death,' I broke in. 

" He made no reply. 

'"There are matters, business matters, I would 
like to attend to, and — ' 

" ' Well, it might be prudent to do it, at your 
convenience, within the next three months.' 

" ' Must I wait so long, doctor? ' I said. 

" 'Are you in earnest, Van Brunt? ' he asked, 
and gave me a searching look. 

" ' I hoped it might be sooner,' I replied. 
' When one's trunks are packed for a journey, 
it is irksome to be told that the train is an hour 
late.' 

" ' My dear fellow,' he continued, ' if this is 
what you call religion, I shouldn't object to 
having some of it for myself. I see you are 
strong, and I may as well be entirely candid. 
If I understand your symptoms, the change 
which you don't seem to fear, but which you 
are apparently anticipating — ' 



202 THEY MET IN HEAVEN 

11 ' Yes, yes,' I broke in, inquiringly. 

" ' May come now at any time.' 

" I couldn't help smiling as I held out my 
hand and replied, ' Thank you, doctor.' 

" Franklin has a big heart, and I wish he also 
had that something which makes me so happy. 

" March 28th. I couldn't write in my diary 
yesterday. My hand trembled, and there was 
such a fluttering inside that I was restless all 
day. 

" March 29th. A bad night. 

" March 30th. Clara ! Gooby ! " 



CHAPTER XI. 

GOOD-NIGHT. 

My story comes to an end. There is little 
more to be said, but that little, like the key- 
stone of an arch, is important. I heartily wish 
I could bring it to a close with joyous laughter, 
but that is impossible. Perhaps, however, I 
can do even better than that, and leave with 
my readers the consciousness of a great victory. 
So far as Van Brunt is concerned, it was the 
grandest victory a human soul ever achieves. 
When he went to Woodbine he was like one 
who rages, but when he bade us good-by there 
were tears in his smiles and smiles in his tears. 
So weak was he that we all sighed, but so hap- 
py was he that we wondered and thanked God. 
When I said good-night to Jessig on that last 
evening, he whispered, softly, referring to Van 
Brunt, " God's presence is a wonderful thing." 
203 



204 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

The whole expression of the man's face had 
changed. He was no longer the Van Brunt 
who bore his burden with clenched teeth, but 
the Van Brunt who had been healed of his 
wounds by the Great Physician. 

He very seldom talked about his religion ; 
he had too much of it to do that. It filled his 
soul so full that his lips were dumb, first with 
astonishment and then with gratitude. I have 
noticed in a somewhat extended experience 
that slender piety is apt to be garrulous, while 
profound consecration is satisfied to find its 
vent in good deeds. Even at The Fireside 
Club Van Brunt was generally the silent mem- 
ber. He would graciously drop a hint of the 
change that was going on within him, but it 
was like the throbbing of the chrysalis when 
the grub has become a butterfly and is just 
ready to try its wings. 

We were troubled about him at the begin- 
ning of the season, for he evidently suffered 
acutely; but before we adjourned he had found 



GOOD-NIGHT. 205 

what he sought, what only God could give, and 
was supremely happy. The sun had risen over 
the hill-tops and the mists had disappeared. 
He saw beyond the horizon of earth, and 
caught a glimpse of the Celestial City. His 
mental and emotional attitude had altered his 
whole outlook. Gloom and despair had given 
way to hope, and hope had brightened to cer- 
tainty. 

When we parted I expected to see him in the 
autumn, but I saw him much sooner. The 
three letters which I received I have pre- 
served as souvenirs of friendship, but the hand- 
writing in the last one shows that the body was 
too feeble to respond to the soul. It was no 
longer vigorous, but tremulous, and I laid it 
by with a pang in my heart. 

If I could have spared the time I should have 
gladly taken a run to town for a day or two's 
visit, but business is inexorable, and we were 
very much pressed at the mills. Our contracts 
were heavy, and it behooved us to keep on the 



206 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

watch, for we were running night and day with 
a double set of hands. It is not strange, there- 
fore, that I was absorbed in my duties almost 
to the point of forgetfulness ; but on the 6th 
of April the clerk handed me a telegram just 
as I was hanging up my coat and getting ready 
for a hard day's work. It was from the Master, 
and contained these words : 

" Van Brunt has asked for you. Come 
quickly, or you may be too late." 

For a moment I was stunned. I must have 
grown pale, for the clerk said, in startled tones, 
"Shall I fetch you a glass of water, sir?" and 
then quickly added, " I hope you have no bad 
news." That brought me to myself, and with 
a hasty "Thank you, it's all right," I went to 
the counting-room and told Mr. Phil my story. 
He instantly gave me leave of absence, and in 
thirty minutes I was on the train. 

I cannot describe the scene at Van Brunt's 
house. He not only recognized me, but pressed 



GOOD-NIGHT. 20J 

my hand, smiled, and whispered, " Almost 
there !" 

The next day he was permitted to talk for a 
few minutes, but Dr. Franklin stood by to put 
an end to the interview whenever his patient 
showed signs of weariness. Van Brunt, his 
voice broken, and at times scarcely audible, 
gave me certain directions about his affairs, 
which it is not necessary to repeat, and then 
asked me to open the second drawer of his 
secretary and fetch a book. It was the diary, 
which had been his only confidant during the 
winter months. 

" It is to be destroyed," he said, huskily. 

" My dear friend," I suggested, " this is the 
record of a remarkable experience and a re- 
markable triumph. There are others, poor 
wanderers, wfro have lost their way in the wil- 
derness, and who would be glad to know how 
you were rescued. If you found the light, it 
is possible that your words may lead them also 



208 THEY MET IN HEAVEN. 

to the light. The book shaft be destroyed if 
you think best; but if it can be made a guide 
and a help — " and then I stopped. 

He lay with closed eyes, evidently thinking. 
At last he turned, and said : 

''You think so?" 

" I do indeed," I replied. 

" But parts are so personal," he whispered. 

" True, and these shall be burned. But other 
parts may give good cheer to struggling souls." 

Still there was hesitation. But in a moment 
he had reached a conclusion, and as I took his 
thin hand in mine, he said : 

" As you choose ; only do for me as I would 
do for you." 

I promised, and he immediately fell asleep. 
I crept out of the room on tiptoe, with these 
precious pages, which have torn my heart in 
the reading, and extracts from which I have 
ventured to make public. 

The next morning the Master called on me. 
What is there in coming events, that they 



G O OD-NIGHT. 2 09 

should tell their secret before a word has been 
spoken? I knew by the measured footsteps of 
the dear old man, by the calm expression of his 
eyes, what had happened. 

"Van Brunt?" I asked. 

He nodded. 

"He is dead?" 

I shall never forget the look the Master gave 
me. It was laden with quiet rebuke, and I felt 
ashamed. 

" No, not dead, but gone to heaven. His 
last words were, ' My wife ! My child ! ' and 
there was a smile on his lips. He was glad tc 
go. Our dear friend Van Brunt is at Home." 



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